


could be weird (but i think i'm into it)

by RavensandWritingDesks2714



Series: M9 Meet-Weird [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Abuse, An introvert's guide to parties: find the snack table and stay there, And has a thing for hoarding banned books, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Asexual Fjord (Critical Role), Beau is a Good Sister, Caleb is a Good Sibling, Caleb knows what's up, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Complicated Relationships, Complicated feelings about gender, Conservative use of German as Zemnian, Cuddling, Dairon as the school librarian, Disabled Essek Thelyss, Discussions of abuse, Empire Siblings - Freeform, Everyone is Queer, F/F, F/M, Families of Choice, Featuring Beauregard's never ending self-sabotage, Feelings, Fjord is not built for physical fights, Gen, Genderfluid Mollymauk Tealeaf, Heed The Tags!!!!!!!!, Here there be headcanons, High School Musical References, I will die on those two hills specifically, I wrote this instead of sleeping is my life motto, I'm constructing an additional hill to die on and it's that one, If I made this any more complicated I'd be Avril Lavigne, Inappropriate Use of Sticky Notes, Interventions, Just another modern AU, Let's be honest, Libraries are for quiet but Caleb didn't get the memo, M/M, Molly is Molly and that is a little shit, Multi, Neurodivergent Beauregard Lionett, Neurodivergent Caleb Widogast, Non linear storytelling, Nott loves to mess with Fjord, Obann is his own warning, Other, Pining, Poly Nein is Best Nein, Queerplatonic Relationships, Sensory Overload, Slow Burn, Stimming, TJ is adorable and must be protected at all costs, That also runs one of those martial arts programs for troubled kids on the side, Thoreau Lionett is an Asshole, Trauma, Trent Ikithon is also an asshole, Unsafe Binding Practices, Vandalism, also it's official, and Google Translate in my back pocket, and most people want to dance not snack on shitty chips, backstories, beau is a troubled kid, because I said so, but we knew that already, caduceus clay as that kid in the back of your class that doesn't talk much but when he does, descriptions of injuries, featuring my beginner's German lessons with Duolingo, forgot to mention that, he's just as weird as the rest of them, hot bois, i've reached Avril Lavigne levels of complicated, innuendos, man is it profound, no beta we die like men, or whatever the nb equivalent is, please don't copyright me i don't own hsm, tags to update as this thing progresses, the relationship tags are intentional, these kids deserve nice things, they're all troubled kids, what you didn't think i was gonna leave Essek out of this did you?, ya'll can pry these headcanons from my cold dead hands, you don't have to talk to people if you've got food in your mouth, you have pinterest to thank for this one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 24,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24515821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavensandWritingDesks2714/pseuds/RavensandWritingDesks2714
Summary: Reverse meet-cute.A series of Meet-weird drabbles, courtesy of my writing prompts pinterest suggestion, featuring the M9.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Caleb Widogast, Beauregard Lionett & Thoreau Lionett Jr., Beauregard Lionett & Yasha, Caduceus Clay & Fjord, Fjord & Beauregard Lionett, Fjord & Jester Lavorre, Jester Lavorre & Beauregard Lionett, Jester Lavorre & Caleb Widogast, Mollymauk Tealeaf & Caleb Widogast, Mollymauk Tealeaf & Yasha, Nott & Caleb Widogast
Series: M9 Meet-Weird [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771675
Comments: 54
Kudos: 194





	1. we catch the same bus home and i always fall asleep, but you always wake me up at my stop

**Author's Note:**

> What's this, starting another drabble series before finishing any of the WIPs I already have? 
> 
> You bet I am! 
> 
> This one is going to be less shippy for the sake of ships (although I love them all) and more focused on the different and intentional relationships that the Nine (Nein) have crafted for themselves. 
> 
> Even more specifically focused on everyone's favorite Empire Siblings, because I love that whole dynamic so so much, holy crap you guys you have no idea. 
> 
> Also, I know things are especially insane right now and as a qpoc, I find it difficult to even put to words how much all of this hurts. But I'm going to keep working on content, because it's what I can do, and if my writing somehow manages to bring light and a spot of joy in this darkness, then that's all I could hope for. Happy Pride everyone! Stay Safe. Don't forget to love each other. 
> 
> Hope you all enjoy this mess.

It’s not because Caleb cares, or anything. It’s just—this girl has been getting on his same bus home for almost a week now (four days to be exact, four days and twenty-two hours to be even more precise). And it’s not that there’s anything about her in particular (Caleb is almost quite certain she is not his type. Is entirely certain that he is undeserving of such a thing even if there were someone out there that could be considered ‘his type’). She is quite unremarkable, this girl. Aside from her dark skin, and undercut, and sharp blue eyes that always scan the bus methodically before she sits down, close enough to the front to make a quick exit if need be, but enough towards the center to be looked over and considered unremarkable.

(Not that Caleb is paying attention.) Not that he hasn’t sketched rough traces of her outline in the edges of his notes, just to give his hands something better to do than…no.

No, it’s not that he _cares_.

Only that, at times, she’ll get on the bus and there will be bruises.

The bruises—according to his sketches, anyway—are not out of place with her. She is…content, satisfied, _comfortable_ in them; as comfortable as one can be, he supposes. But there is a difference in them, he’s learned. A distinction that took nearly those four days to figure out. (Rather, it took him two of those day to figure out, and another two to confirm his theory.)

The distinction comes in how she gets on the bus. If she clomps on with her thick boots and her cropped blue shirt and the cobalt ribbons keeping the long sections of her hair out of her face. If she comes on flushed and triumphant and _loud_ , until the bus seems to vibrate with the very force of her presence, until it makes Caleb want to cover his ears, certain the tremors she leaves will shake him from his body entirely.

Or if she comes on like she had tonight, shoulders up close to her ears in a way that he _knows,_ her bright eyes dull and tired. If she hisses as she sits, the pitch of her voice harmonizing with the hissing of the bus, until Caleb thinks he wants to scream just to try and vibrate some life back into her again.

(Not that he would ever admit that.) Because he doesn’t care.

She falls asleep differently, too. He’s not…watching. Not really. But he notices that when she’s loud and bruised and determined and _vibrant_ , she’ll take up the entire seat with her presence. And his sketches become more defined, catching the broad slope of her brow and the sharp curve of her nose and the bruise, there, across the high bone of her cheek. The bruise that had made her wince and then slump, tired and defeated, when she’d lowered her face into the palm of her hand this time.

She falls asleep small, when she comes on the bus bruised like this. Her knees will draw tight together and remain a rigid angle, grounding her to the grimy, metallic floor. Her arms will fold even tighter across her stomach, and her head will dip down to her chest and she’ll breathe tighter, too, as if even asleep she’s preparing herself for…something.

Caleb isn’t entirely sure, but he thinks he likes drawing her better when she is loud.

He doesn’t care. He _doesn’t_. Only, she always falls asleep right away, regardless of if she is victoriously bruised or…or tired bruised. And he knows her stop, (she is the second to last—second to his) and it doesn’t take much.

The bus screeches and groans as it starts to brake, and Caleb fights a wince and pulls himself out of his seat before the bus driver starts his unintelligible, static ridden call. Caleb swings his backpack up over his shoulder, his notes and sketches already firmly packed inside, and lets the momentum carry himself across the aisle and into the seat right behind her.

(Sometimes, he has seen a different kind of bruising altogether, on the back of her neck.) He tries to ignore those, when he sees them, and studiously leaves them out of his drawings.

But this time it’s just the usual tired bruising, and it’s with his usual sharp sigh and even sharper dropping of his bag to the seat that he wakes her.

She always wakes on her feet. Regardless of how she’d acquired her bruises or her vibrancy or her strangeness. She is on her feet the minute his books hit the seat beside him, a hand flying out instinctively to wrap around the nearest metal pole.

And then the bus screeches to a full stop, and the driver crackles his static filled departure call.

And the girl leaves.

And Caleb rides the final stop before trudging his own, bleak way home.

(And, he doesn’t care. Really.) 


	2. you come into my 24 hour diner at the oddest times because of your weird job but you keep forgetting that we talk because you're always sleep deprived

The sign says ‘DIE’ and she thinks it couldn’t be more fitting. She walks in squinting and then has to shut her eyes entirely because fuck those lights, man! They flicker in an odd staccato beat that prints itself on the back of her eyelids and makes her jittery in the ‘I need to hit something’ kind of way. It takes her ages to even realize that someone is talking to her, that first time, because aside from being tired, and sore, and jittery, and all of those things in varying degrees of severity and in all the wrong ways, the lights on top of that made it all _too much_.

She’d walked out, that first time.

Walked out and gotten on the bus, and if she’d felt shitty before she felt it worse when she’d gotten on and that guy hadn’t been there. Not that she was attracted to him, not by any kind of shot. Not that she cared about him being there, one way or another; with his eyes a pale grey-blue, always either oddly vacant or oddly perceptive whenever he looked around him. Or his scruffy beard, or scruffy hair, the beard a brighter orange than his hair. Or his _hands_ , always flipping through a book or gripping a pencil or scratching at his arms or…or twisting, fidgeting, _flapping_ in that way that she knows all too well; in the sting of wood and leather and other hands and words.

No, it’s not that she cares about him, at all.

But it had been…a kind of routine. A stability despite the way the bus always made her feel jittery, made her feel too seen, made her feel….

Beauregard doesn’t care about the weirdo. She doesn’t.

But she falls asleep that first time on the bus without him, and so he isn’t there to wake her. (She knows it’s him. Knows it’s intentional, despite the way he tries to make it seem like it’s not.) He doesn’t wake her, her first bus ride without him, after her first trip to the diner that tells her to DIE, its letters half burnt away.

He doesn’t wake her, and so she takes the bus all the way to the end. And it’s someone’s hand on her shoulder that wakes her instead, the pressure all _wrong_ and too tight and firm in the way that has her on her feet panicked, on her feet and _vocal_ , in the way that **he** always hates, in the way that only ever made it _worse_ and….

She’d run. She’d run the two miles to the stop she’d missed, two miles because it was a shitty small town and the stops were spaced further apart than they had any right to be. Two miles to the stop and another quarter, half, three-quarter, one, two, three miles home. Which wouldn’t be a problem if she had a car, but the thought of driving terrifies her, the capacity for screwing up too great, too dangerous. Her father terrifies her more, though, which is why she’d run, that first time after her trip to the diner, her first time on the bus without the wizard.

It’s what she’d decided to call him. It seemed to fit, with the way his hands would twist sometimes, and his lips would move as he read. Sometimes she would be brave, and sit on the same side of the bus as him, so she could hear the words coming out of his mouth in that odd, raspy voice of his. Not that she cared, not that he mattered in any way to her, personally, but his voice was…soothing.

There’d been nothing soothing about making it home, finally, after that trip to the diner and the bus ride without him and the hand that had gripped her shoulder all _wrong_ to wake her. The hand that gripped her shoulder when she’d finally gotten home, too tight and too firm, that had left bruises that had been impossible to cover and words that had been impossible to scrub from her mind.

Jittery. She’s way too jittery and she needs to hit something but she can’t hit **him** and so she hits the wall instead. Hits until the plaster dents and her knuckles split and something in her hand splits with it. (Doesn’t take much, not the way she hits.) Until her father’s voice is booming up the stairs, his footsteps booming through the wood floors, and she _flies_ out her bedroom window because no, she wasn’t doing that again.

She crashes on Fjord’s couch, because he has lights that don’t flicker (when they work) and he has hands that grip her shoulder in that way he does that makes her feel less jittery, and he doesn’t ask for anything more than she’s willing to give, which is great. He also calls her out on her bullshit a lot, which is great in hindsight but always sucks when he’s doing it cuz he’ll give her that look and his brows will go up and his drawl will get all low and especially rumbly and she has no choice but to do something.

Which is also how he’d convinced her to go to the local college with him, but she’d also paid him back for that by convincing him to talk to the boy in the back of his class who had pink hair and always smelled like fresh earth and rain and something grassy and sweet. (Fjord’s words. She didn’t do…that.)

She’d ended up staying on Fjord’s couch for a week before finally trying again. And so she takes the bus and the diner still tries to tell her to die, but she shuts her eyes _before_ opening the door and walks inside. And now she can just focus on the sounds, because it’s late and there shouldn’t be as much noise as there is but there is the metallic clinking of silverware and dishes from somewhere to her left and deeper in that must be the kitchen. There’s a dull drone of music and there’s a sharp peal of high laughter from some chick to her far right and there’s…

“Are you alright?”

There’s the wizard.

She opens her eyes and the lights do a great job of convincing her of what the burnt sign had failed to do, but there’s the wizard, staring at her from behind the podium at the front. There’s someone in an odd approximation of a uniform directly behind him, wearing an apron at least, but she’s not sure what to make of the patterns on his…her…hard to tell…shirt. The shirt is gross, and the person has vibrant purple hair shaved sharp on both sides and flowing in thick curls into their face from the top.

They’re both just staring…the purple one with something like delight, maybe. Or maybe something uglier than delight, she’s not sure. It’s hard to read his…her…hard to fucking tell face. But the purple one is smirking like they can read everything about her right then, and she’s jittery again and the only reason she doesn’t punch them is because _the wizard is right there_.

It takes her a bit.

It takes her a few weeks, really.

But she finds a booth in the diner that she really likes, and learns that the purple one is called Mollymauk but prefers Molly, and is entirely fluid but is going by male pronouns “This time around.” (Molly’s words, whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean.) And she learns that the wizard is called Caleb and that the girl who’d been laughing when she’d walked in that one time was called Jester, although she hadn’t yet actually met her.

Beauregard learns that she really likes the diner’s shitty coffee, not for any sense of awareness it might give her, not at the hours that she goes in. But it’s somehow perfectly bitter and Molly always leaves at least one pot going constantly despite claiming how unpleasant they are to clean once they’ve sat for any amount of time. “Unpleasant coffee for the unpleasant one.” (His words. Asshole.) Molly also figures out the lights for her, and by that she means that Molly gets someone else to figure out the lights for her, but the end result is that the section of building she’s in never gets bright enough to flicker.

The only problem is, she talks. And it’s not that she means to. It’s just…the diner feels right. Feels like Fjord’s couch and his hands and the way he always keeps her from going too far when she gets really bad. But she _talks_ , and doesn’t remember what she says because she always comes in after class which is draining or after training with Dairon which is great but leaves her hyper as well as exhausted or when she’s trying to avoid her dad, which is often.

And the diner feels right and sometimes Molly will pretend to wipe off a table near her booth but will really just sit and prep cigarettes for a smoke and listen. And Beau will just talk, and Molly will make snarky comments until Caleb comes over to scold him and then he’ll get back to work. But then Caleb will hover and his hands will twist and he’ll catch himself and whisper comforting things to her in that raspy soothing voice of his, in that tripping bubbling language he speaks.

And they’ll ride the bus home together and sometimes he’ll sit on the bench right next to her and sometimes when he’s feeling brave and she’s feeling less strung he’ll wake her by touching the edge of his hand to her shoulder. Sometimes he’ll leave it there even when she wakes, and she’ll watch him sketch odd patterns in the corners of his notes until the bus stops and she’ll leave.

And she thinks that maybe. Maybe she’ll try and hang onto this one.


	3. my neighbor keeps ordering weird shit but they don't want to face the mailperson's judgement so they keep using my address instead

The mail person won’t look him in the eye in the morning and that’s how Fjord first notices that something is wrong.

“Morning Matt,” he says in greeting.

Matt looks like he can’t decide between blushing or going pale. He ends up doing a complicated mixture of both, stuttering out some kind of pitiful response. Fjord frowns, and scoops up his mail and flips idly through bills and assorted magazines (all garbage ads) and heading out to his crappy day job and then to pick up Beau for classes later on.

It’s when he gets back that Matt splutters again to get his attention, and studiously avoids Fjord’s gaze as he chokes out

“Package came for you.”

Fjord takes the offered box in question, confused as to the response. It’s opened, and he lifts a brow.

“What?” he says, and Matt burrows his face in his hands, eyes just peeking through his fingers at the offending package.

“It…it was buzzing,” he explains, voice muffled and pitched high with discomfort. “St- standard procedure says we have to open…suspicious materials.”

“Right,” Fjord drawls out slowly, then tips the box out of the brown paper and into his hand.

(He’s never regretted anything more in his life.)

The box is harmless enough, a simple white casing with a scrawl of words printed on the side facing Fjord. Matt yelps and goes even redder, and Fjord just catches words like ‘comfortable fit’ and something along the lines of ‘maximizing the experience.’ It’s Matt’s reaction that makes him turn the box, and is faced with an image he’s sure he won’t soon forget. The first thing that comes through is the color. A bright, royal purple. And then he notices the _shape_. And the straps. And the _size_. And….

“What the ever loving fuck!?” he screams.

“You ordered the damn thing!” Matt screeches right back, and Fjord splutters and hacks because the _hell_ he did! And yet, his address is right there on the front of the package and….

“Oh cool, it came!”

He turns to see his neighbor from the floor below him, the scrawny kid with the tattoos and the vibrant purple hair and piercings. The kid’s wearing what Fjord thinks is a robe, but which he’s pretty sure might actually just be curtains or something draped over and only _just_ barely covering him and he’s definitely _not staring_.

The kid saunters over and plucks the offending box from Fjord’s hand, eyeing the picture and skimming the labels on the side with intent and…and…..

“This will be useful,” the kid says, then grins up at Fjord with a smirk that is just too knowing. “Thanks darling.”

And then the kid’s gone, and Fjord is definitely late for work.

* * *

The worst part is, it’s not the last time.

Matt splutters less, at least, even if he still won’t quite meet Fjord’s eyes when he collects the mail. Fjord wishes he could say he’d come up with a more effective way of sorting his mail, but he doesn’t. There’s magazines and various similar paraphernalia. There’s…objects. And clothes, too. Odd patterns of fabric and pieces of outfits and…leather.

All to Fjord’s address. All of which the neighbor either collects with a smirk from Fjord’s hands, or which Fjord dumps, blushing, in front of the door. He feels like a kid playing ding-dong-ditch everytime he does, mostly because that’s essentially what he does; bang on the door and drop the contraband and get the fuck out.

But it doesn’t stop, and Fjord finally works up the courage…and stomps down the stairs and to his neighbor’s door.

“Hello handsome.”

He doesn’t remember knocking.

But the door is open and there’s the kid, leaning against the doorframe with arms crossed and that _smirk_ and the hair which Fjord never realized was actually kind of curly and….shit.

“Uh,” he manages, and one of the kid’s pierced brows goes up.

“See something you like?” the kid continues, and Fjord shakes himself.

(With difficulty. Because the kid’s wearing one of those outfits Fjord remembers peeking at when it got delivered, leather pants with buckles and all kinds of shiny things attached in place of a proper belt. And a purple shirt that is far too loose and billowy, and cut almost to the kid’s naval and…..fuck.)

“Uh,” he says again, and the kid laughs.

“If you’re going to stare, you might as well come in.”

Which is how Fjord finds himself in his neighbor’s apartment. It’s almost a direct copy of his own in layout, except in place of a shitty couch there’s a futon with what looks like a soft velvet cover, a plush rug that looks like it could swallow Fjord if he stepped on it. There’s a tiny T.V. that looks like one of those weird old ones with the antennas that shouldn’t work and yet is playing something on the screen, the background noise of it pleasant and dull. There’s paintings, too, odd patterned, abstract things, with splotches of paint scattered everywhere and twisting shapes in a simile of people and animals. And an interesting, spiced smell in the air that Fjord decides he kind of likes, after a moment of considering.

His neighbor watches him take it all in from behind the counter, eyes deceptively sharp in direct contrast to the smirk that just won’t stop.

“Drink?” the kid says, and Fjord notices the bottle on the counter.

“Wait,” he says. His neighbor doesn’t, just pours silently and continues to stare. “How…how old are you?”

“Old enough,” his neighbor says, and then winks before taking a measured sip.

(well)

“Is…does everything have to be so…” Fjord makes a vague gesture encompassing the general mass of the kid. “With you?”

“Does everything have to be so…what?” the kid asks, both brows quirked upwards now and this is _not_ what Fjord had planned at all.

“Ugh,” he sighs roughly, eyes darting to one of the paintings. “So…sexual.”

He drags the word out slowly, focusing on the odd patch of yellow in the corner of the painting. Yellow was a good color. A bright and dependable color. You couldn’t complicate yellow, even if you tried.

“Are you not?” his neighbor says slowly. “Sexual, I mean.”

“Look this is not a conversation that you…I didn’t come here to talk about my sex life!”

Never mind that he’s not really had much of one. Not that he particularly…it’s not exactly his thing at the best of times. But explaining that to people was just…impossible. Hard enough when he was growing up and just didn’t quite _get_ what everyone else was fussing about. But now? Fjord’s almost out of college and he has no illusions to how people worked. And that was just fine…

“Aw, darn,” his neighbor says with a pout, and Fjord scowls, feeling his face warm.

“I came here to tell you to stop sending your weird packages to my address,” he spits out, a bit sharper than he’d intended.

“My package is absolutely fantastic, thank you very much,” the kid quips. Then, at Fjord’s resulting face: “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I couldn’t…you just make it too easy! Uh, but I have a friend who’s the same way so…I get it. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

The sincerity throws him off, coupled with the revelation that…well. Fjord had always just assumed it was something wrong with him, specifically, that drove his less than stellar sex drive. To hear that there was at least one other like him….

“I think we started this all wrong,” his neighbor says, slipping back around the bar, glass in hand. “I’m Mollymauk, Molly to my friends. Nice to meet you…”

“Fjord,” Fjord says, and he finds that he can almost return the smile he’s given. “It’s…nice to meet you too, Mollymauk.”

“Ah,” Mollymauk says, holding up a finger. “I said it’s Molly to my friends, Fjord.”

And well. It wasn’t what Fjord had planned but he thinks that maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.


	4. you broke into my apartment drunk thinking it was your friend's house and i should call the cops but my cat kinda likes you so we're good

Caleb never considered himself to be a heavy sleeper. He used to be. Nowadays it takes everything for him to even get _into_ his bed, never mind sleep in it. His routine at night is straightforward. He gets home. He takes his coat off. He gets something to eat. (He…pretends to get something to eat. Molly sometimes stops over and he is always hounding after Caleb to “take care of yourself for fuck’s sake” in that vague brogue accent of his that turns fuck into fook.)

He tries to get something to eat.

He showers. When he can. Bathes when he can’t. When the hazy memories of water hitting his skin and hands holding him down and keeping him there and needles and pain get too much. Sometimes he can’t even bathe, the sensation of water hitting his skin in any form too much.

He changes his bandages. He changes his clothes. And then he sits at his kitchen table that is missing a leg and the chair that is missing a back and he “transcribes.” That’s what Beau calls it, his work. His notes and shorthand instructions and doodles mashed into the margins. He supposes it does look a little like something arcane. But…if he can reach it. If he can find a way to…

He has nightmares.

He hates that they are a part of his routine, but he’s always been meticulous about his life. The parts of it that he could control, anyway. The nightmares vary in form but always occur around the same time of the night (3 am) and always leave him rattled until at least 6 (5:43 am exactly) when the sun starts to come up and he falls unconscious again.

Frumpkin, his cat, usually joins him on the bed around that time, too. His warm weight is nothing in the grand scheme of things, but is just enough of a weight to be deep pressure against his legs, or his side, or his back (or, once, on his chest). Just enough to ground him and keep him calm through the worst of it all. Frumpkin is a particular cat. Caleb had found him in the alley behind the diner one night, half dead in a black garbage bag. He’d been a tiny thing then, all knobby and big-pawed and wide eyed in the way that only kittens were.

(Frumpkin is still knobbly and big-pawed and wide eyed, only now in a much more suitable, adult cat way.)

But Frumpkin is picky in who he likes.

Caleb. Which is undeserved, really. His cat, so pure in a way that he is not, that he could never hope to be.

Fjord. Much to his friend's chagrin. Despite the sneezing, Frumkin insists on rubbing against his ankles constantly.

Molly… Frumpkin is uncertain about Molly, which. Caleb is…disappointed? Because he…Caleb likes Molly. And is also entirely undeserved of him, but still. He does. Frumpkin tolerates Molly when Molly is not being loud, and so Frumpkin remains burrowed beneath the weighted blanket on Caleb’s bed when Molly visits.

And that is all. Particular cat for a particular human. And a particular set of routines that do not stray outside the norm. And that is just how Caleb likes it.

Which is why it is so jarring to hear something slam and then shatter in his living room.

He sits bolt upright, dislodging Frumpkin, who ‘mrrps’ angrily at him. Fear pounds so strongly in his gut he’s nearly sick, and he grips the sheets and tries to remember how to breathe but _they found him they found him oh god they found him they’re going to take him back they—_

Frumpkin ‘mrrps’ again and bunts his head against Caleb’s hand. He jerks so sharply the cat nearly goes off the side of the bed, but Frumpkin digs his claws in and Caleb scritches mechanically at his ears because his cat is the only thing between him and—

“Shit!”

He flinches hard, and Frumpkin nips his hand with tiny teeth in frustration before leaving and no…no no please!

“The fuck?!” he hears from the other room. “Since—does—have a cat?”

He blinks.

That…he knows that voice.

The bus. The diner. Cobalt ribbons and cobalt eyes and bruises.

He’s out of bed before his brain can catch up, and he stubs his toe on the corner of the doorframe but his hands seek out the light switch and then suddenly the world makes sense again. Or, not quite. Makes sense in that it is not, in fact, the demons from his past made flesh come to drag him back to hell.

Does _not_ make sense in that Frumkin is purring loudly, rubbing his face against the ankles of Beauregard, who looks as if she’s…drunk? There’s a wobble (and a stench) to her body and an uncertainty to her eyes as they dart around the lit space before finding him. And…and bruises again. Or, marks that have yet to become bruises, littering the bit of exposed skin around her ribs that he can see since she is wearing a cropped band t-shirt. And pajama pants? And…there is a bag, on the floor at her feet.

“Whu—wizard?” she says, upon seeing him.

He blinks at her, because he can’t quite figure out words right now, with his brain so split between his visceral terror and now his visceral confusion.

“This…thisisn’tFjord’s,” she mutters, head dropping down to see Frumpkin, still purring and trying to rub his whole body against her feet.

“I should call the police,” he says.

Ah. Words. Wrong ones, though. Scheisse.

“What?” Panic, now, in Beauregard’s eyes. Her hands come up to grip her arms tight and then she winces and he sees there’s something there, too. “Please…please don’t.”

_Please don’t! Please, I’m sorry, it was an accident please don’t!_

“Fuck,” he hisses, when his brain reconnects with the present. “Sit down.”

It’s too sharp, too harsh. She flinches, and sits on the edge of his coffee table.

“I thought this was Fjord’s,” she says jerkily, watching him closely. “Please don’t call the cops, I’ll just go.”

She’s startlingly coherent for being drunk, and he wonders if that’s just how her body processes alcohol or if it’s just the fear. Maybe both.

“You…why would you go to Fjord’s?” Caleb manages to get out, a good deal slower and hopefully less angry.

Her head jerks in his direction but her eyes don’t quite find his, focusing somewhere just a little to the left. He’s grateful for it, because he doesn’t think he could handle eye contact right now. Then he notes the stiff way she holds herself and wonders if there’s perhaps more that he’s not seeing to this.

“You uh. You know Fjord?” Beau says carefully, like she’s measuring her words almost as much as he is his.

“Ja…yes,” Caleb says. “He is…he is a good friend.”

“Yeah,” Beau says, something fond creeping across her face. “Yeah, he is.”

“Why would you go to Fjord’s?” he asks again, and it’s as he takes a cautious step forward that he can see the two-tier bookshelf near the window is broken.

Oh. He’d liked that shelf. Molly had…and now is certainly not the time.

Beau flinches, and it’s so drastically different from her usual demeanor when she comes into the diner where he sees her most, and it’s enough to warrant eye contact. She is…scared? He thinks. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Beau scared like this, not even the brief moment when he’d said he should call the cops.

He still should, though. But…Frumkin.

Frumpkin is a very particular cat. And yet he’d hopped into Beau’s lap as soon as she’d perched on the coffee table.

“My…” Beau starts, and then stops. She’s…rocking. It’s so subtle he almost misses it but for the way Frumkin’s tail seems to twitch in unison with her movement. “It’s not a good idea for me to be home right now.”

She says it fast, like it’s an admission that would kill her, and then her eyes shoot up to his so abruptly it’s like she’d thrown a dagger at him.

“If you tell anyone I’ll kill you, Caleb.”

It’s the use of his name, more than the threat, that gives him pause. 'Nerd,' she calls him. ‘Wizard,’ and ‘pain in my ass’ (although Molly gets that one more than he does) and also ‘annoying’ and sometimes ‘smart.’ Hardly ever does she look him in the eyes and call him ‘Caleb.’

“I should call the police,” he says again, carefully keeping her gaze. “But…my cat likes you so…I think we’re good.”

“What. The fuck. Does that mean.”

It means that Beauregard sleeps on the floor in his crappy one-bedroom apartment. And Frumpkin betrays him and curls up on her chest instead, but purrs loudly enough that it soothes them both and that somehow, for the first time, Caleb doesn’t have any nightmares.

“This isn’t gonna become a habit,” Beau says brusquely in the morning, shifting her weight back and forth and wringing her hands like she does when she’s antsy. (Not that Caleb notices. Or cares.)

“Well,” he says back, handing her a copy of his key. “I should hope you won’t make a habit of breaking into people’s houses in the middle of the night.”

She laughs, and punches him in his shoulder in that way that he is learning means affection with her just as much as a hug means affection for other people. She doesn’t take his key, but she does linger, just a moment longer in the doorway, scratching Frumkin’s ears.

“I uh…I’m glad your cat liked me.”

Frumpkin stares out the window and meows after he when she goes, and Caleb scratches idly at his arms and watches his cat.

“Ja,” he says softly. “Me too.”


	5. i run the night slot on campus radio and some jackass keeps calling in to insult my music taste and request high school musical songs instead

Yasha loves the campus at night. Everything feels far more alive in the silence and quiet, and most of her fellow students are _not_ night people, and so they are miserable and tired and generally ignore her. Which is just fine. She doesn’t really like large crowds and the stares they usually bring, and so the less interaction she has to endure the better.

The campus at night with _storms_ was what Yasha believed the phrase ‘having cake and eating it’ was made for. The campus at night with _storms_ and her side job of running the campus radio…she didn’t think there was a more appropriate phrase to describe the joy it gave her.

“Ok, so…uh. This one is one of my favorites for nights like this. I dunno, it just…it fits.”

Minus the talking.

She can’t ever come up with anything witty or clever, and usually settles on something soft and quick. It’s the music that matters, anyway. She ques it up, and the low, gentle synth beats of Balconies by Paper Route start drifting through the speakers.

Yasha leans back in her chair and lets the headphones rest around her neck and starts sorting through some more CDs and the ever rare and valuable vinyls that she’d found in the very back of the studio closet. Some are in terrible condition, and not likely to last, but a few…a few of them seem promising. The song ends too soon, and Yasha effortlessly slips into the next track, something wonderful and synth-y and bassy in the way that only Tame Impala can be.

It’s around midnight and halfway through some softer, lazy Indie that she gets a call.

No one ever calls, and so it startles her so much she nearly doesn’t get her headphones up in time. She just barely remembers to hit the correct switch to broadcast the way she’s supposed to.

“H-hullo?” she says softly. (Though it is kind of the default for her.)

“Hello dear!”

The voice on the other end is not what she’d been expecting to hear. It’s a little hard to tell at first, if the caller is male or female, and there is a slight lilt to it that is almost musical in its tone.

“Um…thanks for calling,” she continues, trying to remember the ancient protocol she’d been lectured on at the start of this job a year ago. “You’re listening to—”

“Oh, I know what I’m listening to hon and it is _garbage._ ”

The caller says it so cheerfully that Yasha almost doesn’t catch the insult for what it is. Then it hits her, and she has to sit down again.

“I…excuse me?”

“Yah, I mean, _enough_ of the Indie! We get it, you’re a quirky hipster, but can you play something good? Like…oh, hey. You got any High School Musical in there?”

Yasha blinks, stunned. The music has long stopped in the background, but she can’t even que up the next song, not even on autopilot. There’s a muffled noise from the other end of the line, and the caller clicks their tongue softly.

“Sorry, gotta go, but it was wonderful talking to you! Remember what I said about good music.”

And then there’s an echoing click and the line is silent.

“What the fuck?”

* * *

The thing is, they call again.

Two nights later, in fact.

She’d tried to switch up the music a little. One of the vinyls was in good enough shape and she was able to enlist the aid of another friend who dealt in music and restore it enough to be played. The label had long since come off, and so it’s entirely a surprise, which was why she’d been waiting to play it.

It’s a Radiohead album, as it turns out. OK Computer, as fate would have it. She taps out the beats of the drums as Paranoid Android starts to play, letting herself get swept up in the familiar tune. She’s not even halfway through the first verse when the phone rings.

“I thought we talked about this!” the mysterious caller wails when she connects them. “You can at least do a guy a favor, can’t you?”

“Who—”

“Look, I’ll even make it simpler. It doesn’t even have to be from the original High School Musical, any of ‘em’ll do. Heck, even something from HMS 3, which I know a lot of people like to pretend didn’t exist for some reason but I think— damn it.”

“What?” Yasha finds herself asking, a hand coming up to stabilize the headphones.

“Nothing, just my…oh come on! Fuck, I gotta go.”

And then the line clicks and it’s just Yasha and her radio once more.

* * *

They don’t call for a week, and Yasha doesn’t want to admit that she’s worried over a mysterious and kind of rude caller whose name she still doesn’t even know.

But….well. She is.

Fjord thinks she’s being ridiculous and that she shouldn’t feed into what is probably just some drunk or high prank.

But. Well. They’d been her only caller in her entire time working the campus radio’s night slot. And even if they did insult her music tastes, and even if it was a prank, it was…nice? To have the company.

She calls Jester and within a day she has the entire High School Musical discography (including the supposedly controversial 3rd movie) all condensed onto one disk.

She takes a breath and opens up the broadcast, finger hovering over PLAY.

“This uh…this one goes out to that asshole who wouldn’t stop insulting my taste in music. I…hope you like it.”

She clicks play and within seconds there’s a bright upbeat and bad in a good way soundtrack playing. She’s never heard or watched High School Musical before, but when Jester found out what Yasha had in mind, she’d insisted that she watch at least the first movie. It’s something from the first one playing now, and she vaguely remembers the scene having something to do with an audition and there’s been a ladder and glitter or something. She’s not sure.

But the tune is somehow in her head despite only the one watch, and she doesn’t know why, but she’s singing the chorus by the time it’s done. _Bop bop bop, bop to the top!_ The song ends, and transitions seamlessly into the next one, and the phone rings.

Heart skipping, she answers and connects the line to broadcast.

“H—”

“Uh yeah what the fuck?! What on earth are you doing in there?”

It’s a random student, not the one she’s hoping for. But she doesn’t stop playing the set list and the phone doesn’t stop ringing, full of complaints and curses from, apparently, her regular listeners who do in fact, like her usual taste and did not appreciate the sudden shift in tone.

It’s nearing one in the morning and thankfully, most of the complaints had tapered off. The phone rings, and she adjusts the volume just in case it’s more swearing and connects the line.

“Hey, um. You’re on the air so please don’t curse too much,” she says, and the laugh that comes through is familiar and warm.

“You actually did it, I’m touched.”

“Oh,” Yasha says, delight fluttering through her for some unexplained reason. “It’s you.”

“In the flesh. Well, not really. Thought that counts.”

“You uh…you know it took my friend a day to put the entire thing on one disc for me?”

“Oh really? All that trouble and just for me?”

There’s something off about their voice this time, and Yasha isn’t sure what it is. She knows she doesn’t like it, though.

“Um. Are you alright?”

Huh? Oh. Yeah of course,” they say, bright as ever. “Do me a favor, turn this one up will you?”

She does, shifting the volume without even looking, and a soft slow ballad starts up. _Once in a lifetime means there’s no second chance, so I believe that you and me should grab it while we can._

“So,” Yasha says, as the soft tune continues in the background. “If you don’t mind. What brought this all on, anyway?”

They hum a soft laugh that sounds almost nostalgic before answering overtop the chorus. _Every day of our lives, wanna find to there, wanna hold on tight. Gonna run while we’re young and keep the faith._

“Oh, just…wanted to remember a friend.”

It sounds bitter, when they say it. It sounds sad. It sounds light and airy and hopeful. Yasha can empathize with all of that.

“I see,” she says, quietly.

The song continues, and neither one of them hangs up. The track list ends after the last note, and there’s a soft sigh from the other side of the line.

“Well,” they say, lilting accent just a touch thicker. “Thanks again for that, darling. You’re a treasure.”

“Wait,” Yasha says, fingers hovering over the controls to keep the line open. “Um…what. What is your name?”

“Ha, right. The name’s Molly, dear.”

“Molly,” she repeats softly. It doesn’t quite help with determining masculine vs feminine, but that doesn’t matter as much to her as “Do you really hate my music so much?”

“No, not a bit,” Molly replies lightly. “It’s…it’s you. How could anyone ever hate that?”

“Goodnight Molly.” She’s smiling softly as she lowers the headphones, so Molly’s voice fills the studio.

“Goodnight.”

“Yasha.”

“Goodnight, Yasha.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real talk: all of the songs are songs or styles that I think a modern day might enjoy (though maybe biased on my own tastes.) 
> 
> Also GUYS THEY'RE MAKING A HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 4 AND MY BODY IS NOT READY!!! I was a *child* when that shit came out for the first time (fricking 2006 man) like holy heck I'm gonna cry!!


	6. i escaped to the laundry room to avoid hearing my roommates having extremely loud sex only to find that you're here doing the same thing

Caleb _had_ been enjoying his book, was the thing. He’d had Frumpkin curled up in his lap and some soft lo-fi tune playing in the background and some coffee from the diner that Molly had smuggled for him. The lo-fi hadn’t been something that he’d thought he’d like initially, but Beau had got him into it and now he put it on in the background whenever he needed some ‘chill noise.’ (Beau’s words.)

And the coffee hadn’t quite gotten cold yet, so he hadn’t been at it for too long. And then a door had slammed somewhere above him and because the walls of the apartment were so thin, he’d been able to hear the first few excruciating movements and pants and moans of what were _definitely_ his neighbors having sex.

He’d fled his apartment so fast he may as well have teleported.

Now, he’s curled up in the laundry room near the heater, no Frumpkin and no coffee and no lo-fi chill noise. But he’s still got his book, and no one to disturb him, and so he supposes he’s relatively content. He’s not sure exactly how long it is before he’s interrupted again. (An hour and thirty five minutes? An hour and forty, maybe?)

But the laundry room door slams open with such force it startles him, and a new figure stumbles in. They’re gasping like they’d run for miles to get here, and Caleb hears a series of sharp breaths and coughs and curses as the figure is doubled over, trying to catch their breath. He sits quietly and just watches, taking stock, and so it is that the other person jumps when they finally straighten and see Caleb there.

“Holy fuck balls!”

Eloquently put, for being so out of sorts, Caleb thinks.

“Hallo,” he says softly, and the person coughs once more and nods jerkily.

“The hell are you doin’ down here?”

There’s a light drawl to their voice that speaks of practice and the South, and Caleb files away the information for later. He holds up his book in place of answering with words, and the newcomer nods again and shuffles closer. In the light now, Caleb can see a young man not too much younger than him, with a bit of a scruffy beard, close cropped dark hair that streaks lighter towards the front, tanned skin and a scar across his brow. The man sits on the laundry room bench not too far from where Caleb is sitting, and Caleb sighs just a bit because he just _knows_ he’s not going to be able to finish his book now.

“Uh…name’s Fjord, by the way,” the man says, and Caleb nods and tries to focus on the words in front of him.

“Caleb,” he answers automatically. “Caleb Widogast.”

Fjord nods again, and clears his throat roughly. “Good book you’re reading, Caleb Widogast?”

“Well it is better than listening to my neighbors having sex, so, _ja_. It is a good book.”

“Shit, you too?” Fjord says, and Caleb frowns and closes his book in spite of himself.

“Me too, what?”

“Uh,” Fjord says, and turns red, slightly. “My roommate…sporadic roommate but I guess it doesn’t really matter technically. She stays over sometimes. Not…not like that! I don’t uh…I don’t really _do_ uh…that. But um. She’s got…so I just came down here to avoid….um.”

He rambles in an odd rush, and is fully red around the ears when he finishes, swallowing hard and cutting himself off. Caleb isn’t entirely sure he’d got most of what had been said, but pieced enough together from context and what he could pick up to understand.

“I see,” he says conversationally, as though it were the weather and not their roommate or neighbors’ sexual encounters that they were discussing.

“It’s not that I particularly care, one way or another, really,” Fjord continues hurriedly, fingers fidgeting in his lap. “That it’s my apartment or anything. It’s not like she’d be able to just...take someone home, I’ve gathered that much. It’s just that—”

“You have not had much experience, yourself,” Caleb surmises, and Fjord jumps, startled.

“What?!” he yelps, eyes whipping sharply to Caleb. Caleb focuses his attention on the odd light part of Fjord’s hair.

“You are not particularly experienced with sex and so it is awkward for you. That is understandable,” Caleb says bluntly. If anything, Fjord turns redder, fidgets harder, and Caleb frowns, wondering if maybe he hadn’t pegged it right. Or if this is one of those things that people just didn’t actually talk about. Hm.

“Uh-huh,” Fjord coughs, resolutely avoiding Caleb’s eyes now. “Uh, no. I um. I’ve had…experience.”

Caleb narrows his eyes, trying to understand the dilemma. “But you did not—“

“It’s just not my thing,” Fjord blurts out, head dipping down as he rubs at the back of his neck. “And I know, I know…you look at me and think that’s just ridiculous how could a guy like _that—_ ”

“I see,” Caleb says, the pieces clicking. “You’re asexual.”

Fjord startles again, and this close Caleb can see that his eyes are an interesting gray-blue as they widen at his words.

“What?” Fjord splutters, and Caleb shifts back slightly, assessing.

“You are asexual,” he repeats slowly. “In that you do not feel sexual attraction to people. It is not that unheard of, I have a friend in fact, who…. What?”

Fjord is giving him a look, an odd look somewhere between…Caleb isn’t sure. He is not happy, not exactly. And not quite horrified. Not really. But somewhere close enough to both of those things that it created an odd look on his face.

“There…I didn’t know there was a word for it,” he says quietly.

Oh. That explains the look then. Caleb flips his book back open and tries to give him ‘a moment.’ It seems warranted.

“Yes, well,” Caleb says slowly, skimming the page to find his spot. “As I said, it is not unheard of.”

“I…always just thought….”

Caleb closes his book again sharply, because he had gone through this once before and he wasn’t about to let someone else think—

“There is absolutely nothing wrong with you,” he says sharply, and Fjord blinks at him, startled.

“Uh,” he says, and Caleb closes his book again.

“There are many things that society likes to tell people are wrong because it does not align with their ‘status quo’ view of ‘normal,’” Caleb says, sour. “But normal is overrated, and anyway, your lack of sexual attraction does absolutely nothing to detract your value as a human being.”

“Um,” Fjord says again, still blinking with that odd expression. “That’s…wow. Ok.”

Caleb flips his book open once again and settles into a more comfortable position. “I suggest you get comfortable, because when my neighbor has someone over, they tend to take a while.”

Fjord splutters and goes red, but recovers quickly and stretches out on the bench.

“I uh…I don’t think Beau’s gonna take that long actually but—”

And _that_ catches Caleb’s attention.

“Did you say Beau?” he asks, sitting up sharply. “Beauregard Lionett?”

Beauregard Lionett. Beau from the diner. Beau with the cobalt eyes and the cobalt clothes and the cobalt bruises, sometimes. Beau from the bus. Beau, who Molly keeps coffee going for and who punches Caleb to show affection and who broke into his apartment accidentally when she could not go home and who Frumpkin likes. Who Caleb likes, maybe. Definitely.

“Yeah?” Fjord says carefully, eyebrow raised. “Wait, do you _know_ her?”

“You know her?” Caleb parrots back, then stops. “Wait. You are Fjord.”

“Y-yes.”

“ _You’re Fjord!”_

“Yeah, I fuckin’ told you that already!”

Caleb is on his feet now, mind reeling and hands going without his permission. He decides it doesn’t quite matter if Fjord sees him stim, because this is…this is…this is….

“You’re Fjord, you’re Fjord who’s couch she sleeps on and who’s apartment she thought mine was and you’re Fjord who Caduceus talks about sometimes when he comes into the diner and you’re you’re you’re Fjord! That Fjord!”

Fjord is…Caleb isn’t sure. He’s never been good with figuring out expressions. He wants to ask, wants to know for sure if the look is a good one or not but….

“I’m sorry, what is that face you are making?”

Fjord stammers without words, and that is not helpful at all. _Scheisse!_

“It’s…my face is what the ever loving fuck is happening right now,” Fjord says, finally, and ah. Yes. Caleb can see it now.

“Wait, Beau was in your…Caduceus? You know…he talks about me?”

Fjord is definitely red now, and Caleb decides maybe he should sit. He does, and Fjord seems to appreciate it, judging by the way his ‘what the fuck is happening right now’ face seems to lessen slightly.

“Caduceus sometimes comes into the diner I work at, and he talks from time to time about…well, about a young man in one of his classes that he….hm.”

“Hm?” Fjord repeats, leaning forward and both eyebrows up now. “Hm what?”

“It just occurred to me that perhaps Cad should be the one telling you and not me. Beauregard broke into my apartment one evening a few weeks ago—” (two weeks and four days to be exact, but still.) “—thinking that it was your apartment. I was going to call the cops, but my cat liked her, so she stayed the night.”

“Gah, whiplash!” Fjord yelps, and Caleb cocks his head slightly, uncertain. “You just…you fucking changed tack so damn fast!”

Right. Not everyone’s minds followed the same paths his did. Which was a shame, honestly. Caleb thinks it might make things so much easier for people.

“We both know Beauregard Lionett and Caduceus Clay,” Caleb clarifies. Needlessly, in his opinion. “I had begun to explain how I knew Cad, and mentioned that he sometimes talks about you, but then it occurred to me that perhaps he should be the one telling you the things he says, and so I started to explain how I knew Beauregard, instead. We ride the bus together, as well, it wasn’t just the break-in that I knew her from.”

“Mmm, nope, still too much,” Fjord says, eyes squinting shut.

Caleb huffs. This is…exactly what he means.

“I don’t know how to break it down any simpler,” he says, and Fjord cracks an eye open to glare at him.

“Well that’s fuckin’ condescending of you.”

Was it? Crap. This is…

“I didn’t intend it that way,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“Nah, ‘t’s fine,” Fjord says after a moment. “Just…wasn’t expecting the connection. Small worlds, and all that.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“So, Caleb,” Fjord says. “What uh, what do we do now?”

“Now?” Caleb looks at him. “Now we wait for our respective neighbors and roommates to finish their endeavors with other people.”

“Ha ha,” Fjord chuckles, the tension going out of his shoulders. “Yeah. Um. Thanks, by the way. For saying what you did earlier. I…I needed it.”

“Of course.”

And Caleb picks up his book again, and Fjord pulls a small ball from his pocket and bounces it against the laundry room wall opposite.

Small worlds, Caleb thinks. Indeed.


	7. sorry i knocked you out in that bar fight last night, but i brought you to a hospital and stuck around 'till you woke up to apologize

Fjord is driving, because although he’d been slowly teaching Beau how to drive, there was no way in the nine hells that she was going to manage being behind the wheel right now.

“Can’t you make this thing go _any_ faster?” Beau snaps, not for the first time.

She wonders if it’s possible to pop your own kneecap off; if she’s maybe gripping hers too tightly. (She grips harder anyway.) Her other hand is keeping an ice pack firmly pressed to the back of the (objectively) incredibly pretty girl sprawled across her lap. Caleb has his fingers around Beau’s shoulder encouragingly, and from the passenger seat, Caduceus turns to give her a lazy smile.

“I’m sure everything will be just fine, Miss Beau,” he rumbles in that bassy voice of his.

Beau groans, and she’d bury her face in her hands if she wasn’t so keyed up right now. “She’s gonna be so pissed when she wakes up.”

Never mind the fact that the bar fight had been the girl’s idea, anyway. How was Beau supposed to know she’d never thrown a punch before? How was Beau to know that the girl had turned out to be Jester, the one that Fjord kept dancing around and a regular at Caleb’s diner? Although, she had gotten a few good hits in regardless, at least before Beau had settled into her rhythm. Then it had really been a matter of gravity doing its work. And the alcohol. And oh _fuck!_

“We are all underage and incredibly drunk right now,” she blurts, as soon as Fjord brakes for the next light, panic thudding in her chest.

“Well,” Caleb says evenly, squeezing her shoulder just a little tighter. “Fjord is not drunk, and I did not drink, and also Cad is not drunk, so I think your point is moot, Beauregard.”

Except it’s not because _she’s_ still underage and incredibly drunk, and so is the girl passed out in her arms, and also Fjord isn’t ‘drunk’ but he’s still definitely on the tipsy side of things and technically _shouldn’t_ be driving, but he’d refused to let anyone else drive his car. And also because he’s the only one of the group to have his license. Caleb’s got a permit, but he has a thing about driving in that he just doesn’t, and Cad has a thing about driving in that he shares a car with all of his siblings and his older brother never lets him have the car.

But all of that is beside the point because Beau is drunk, definitely, and the hospital…the hospital _knows_ her.

“Beauregard, you’re going to need to breathe for me, _ja_?”

She blinks, and realizes Caleb is right. She takes a few sharp breaths that do absolutely nothing to sway her worst case scenario thought process. Fjord pulls into the hospital parking lot what feels like seconds later, but which Caleb tells her bluntly had been several minutes of Beau mumbling scenarios to herself and panicking.

“Shit,” she hisses, as Fjord lifts Jester off her lap and he and Cad lean her between the two of them. Caleb steadies Beau, and they all pile into the hospital together.

Immediately the lights hit Beau’s eyes, and then the sterile smell, and fuck, fuck fuck she can’t she can’t….

“Beau,” Fjord says, and suddenly they’re sitting, and Caleb is smooth talking his way through the staring doctors and nurses and Cad is holding Jester, who is just starting to come around a bit.

“Yeah,” she says, and her voice sounds all wrong and gravelly. “I’m fine.”

She’s definitely not, and Fjord doesn’t believe her for a second, judging by the look he gives her. But he doesn’t call her on it, and she’s almost relieved. Until one of the nurses catches her eye and oh _shit_ it’s—

“Beauregard,” the nurse says, and it’s surprise and disdain all rolled into three syllables. “I can’t say it’s a pleasure to see you here again.”

Beau rolls her eyes before fixing an equally pleasant-disgusted smile on her own face. “Zeenoth!” she crows, as obnoxiously as she can.

Zeenoth winces, and it’s definitely worth it. At least until he walks over, and Beau can feel the group giving her looks. Specifically, Fjord is look at Zeenoth and back like he’s trying to work out the connection, and Caleb…Caleb is looking at her as if waiting to be told that this is a threat to be dealt with. And as entertaining as the thought of Caleb going attack dog and imagining what that might entail is, Zeenoth is more an inconvenience than an actual threat. Well, unless he….

“So, which is it?” Zeenoth says briskly, the white of his uniform only accentuating his pale features.

“Which is…what?”

“Am I going to need to call your father, or Dairon?”

Beau flinches, in spite of herself, and Fjord subtly slips his fingers into hers and squeezes lightly.

“N-no,” she manages tightly. “Neither of those is necessary, Z.”

Zeenoth lifts a doubtful brow. “Why don’t I believe you?” he says.

“I didn’t even do anything,” she snaps, and shit that’s the worst way to…and fuck he’s already got his phone out and…..

“It’s not…it was an accident,” Beau blurts out, wishing she wasn’t so wired that she couldn’t move, wishing she could just— “Please….please don’t fucking call my dad.”

Zeenoth gives her a cool look and flips open his phone, because he’s archaic that way, and hits a button.

“Your _prodigy_ is at the hospital again,” he says smoothly into it.

She hates him.

Dairon arrives by the time Caleb has convinced the staff to get them a room and also _not_ to test them all for drug use or whatever. She doesn’t know how the fuck he does it, but she wants to learn. Hmm…maybe. Her fists were more reliable than words. Except....

“Beauregard,” Dairon says, and shit this was just her night, wasn’t it? “Do you want to explain to me what is going in?”

“What’s going on is that Zeenoth can’t mind his own fucking business,” she growls, and Zeenoth sighs heavily over Dairon’s shoulder.

“Always a pleasure, Beau,” he mumbles, and drifts off to do whatever nerdy hospital shit he did when he wasn’t ratting her out to Dairon.

“Well,” Dairon says, and Beau hedges uncomfortably and wishes the others weren’t in the room with Jester.

“It really was just an accident,” she says, arms crossing across her chest. Dairon’s not actually that much taller than her, but their presence alone is fucking intimidating when they want. “Was just hanging out with some friends and maybe kinda got into a bar fight. But it’s fine! I’m fine and anyway, it was more friendly competition than a fight and….”

She trails off, because Dairon is giving her _that look_ and Beau still hasn’t figured out if it’s a good look or a bad look. Calculating, like Dairon is seeing a million things that Beau isn’t and judging her for it. Except Dairon doesn’t really judge, not like her dad or Zeenoth does. Dairon….is talking, oh shit pay attention!

“…cannot keep bailing you out of situations like this, Beauregard,” they’re saying. “The point of your time at the Cobalt Soul is not so you can waste your talents in bar fights and roughing up innocent civilians.”

“Ok, yeah but it wasn’t…I mean that’s not…ok. I know.”

“Not only that, but this isn’t the first time that such a thing has happened,” Dairon continues, and Beau snaps her head up sharply.

“Now wait, _that_ guy deserved it!”

He had. He was being a creep to Yasha and making her uncomfortable and shit. They’d all called him out for it and he’d backed off real quick after Beau’d hit him, anyway. Or maybe that was cuz Fjord had threatened to call the cops. Or Molly cursing him out. Really, any number of the things that they’d done. But Beau liked to think it’s cuz she’d hit him.

“Beauregard,” Dairon says sharply, and she freezes because she knows that tone.

She’s never heard it from Dairon, not like that, but usually from her dad. There must be something that shows in her expression, because Dairon sighs, and jerks their head towards the room her group had disappeared into.

“Go and join your friends,” they say finally. “We’ll discuss this more when I see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, ok,” Beau says.

She’s definitely not off the hook, but it’s the most lenient she’s ever seen Dairon and she’s not about to waste the opportunity she’s given. She slips into the room and is greeted promptly by Caleb, who glances out into the hallway behind her to watch Dairon leave.

“Was that the school librarian?” he asks, and Beau shoves past him to take the seat next to Fjord that he’d clearly vacated.

“Is Jester awake yet?” she asks instead of answering, and Caleb frowns at her chin.

“Not yet,” Fjord starts. “But the doctor says any….”

“Mmm, Fjord, why is the room spinning?”

“Minute.”

“Hey, Jes,” Beau says warily, as Jester sits up in the bed, rubbing at her eyes.

“Hey,” Jester says back. “Beau? Why do you have such a weird look on your face?”

“Um,” Beau says, scratching at the back of her head. “You…do you remember what happened?”

“Well,” Jester says slowly, eyes flickering around and taking in the rest of the group. “I remember I was suuper excited to show you guys to this new bar I found, but then we couldn’t get in cuz we didn’t have the secret passcode or something? And so then we just went to the Leaky Tap and Caleb got them to let us in because he’s really charming that way but not as charming as you, Fjord, don’t worry! And then we had some drinks, and some snacks and then oh! Beau! We got into a fight but I won and it was awesome!”

Fjord chokes, Caleb goes red, and Cad blinks slowly, a smile curling his lips. “Oh,” he says softly. “Sounds like you guys had a great time.”

“It was, Caduceus,” Jester agrees emphatically, grinning. “Beau? Why do you….?”

“Uh….yeah,” Beau says, blinking. She’s not sure she followed all of that, but Jester definitely doesn’t have as big a concussion as she feared. Or maybe she did and was just delirious from the pain. Shit fuck ass…. “Except um. I kind of….knockedyouout.”

“What?” Jester says. Her pixie cut sways when she tilts her head, and Beau focuses on the blue-dyed tips to keep from losing her mind.

“I uh…I kind of knocked you out during our bar fight, and I’m really sorry, Jester! But we all brought you the hospital and they say you’re gonna be fine, so. Yeah.”

“Oh,” Jester says, then grins again so brightly it pangs at something in Beau’s chest. “Well it was still a lot of fun! Next time I’m going to knock you out and then we’ll be even!”

“Sure,” Beau says, because what else is there to say?


	8. i lost my asshole friends in this club and i’m kinda drunk and you’re kinda gorgeous, please help me

Beau is not drunk. Not in the slightest.

She’d only had one drink the entire time they’d been here. If that drink happened to somehow never reach empty, well…that wasn’t Beau’s fault. Only that the whole place seems to be too loud and not loud enough all at once, and she thinks maybe she wants to hit something, but the energy in her body is all wrong for hitting and so she drinks instead.

Usually Fjord would be at her elbow, tempering her progress on the amount of alcohol she was consuming. Except Fjord is not at her elbow, and neither is Jester or Caleb or Cad. Molly was…she wasn’t sure where he was, either. She doesn’t remember if he’d come or not. She thinks he had. Caleb…Caleb was introducing them all to a friend he’d met. And for some reason they didn’t like being too much in the spotlight, and so they’d chosen a bar to meet them all. Caleb said that was because in a bar it was easier to go unnoticed, but Beau thought that if one was trying to be discreet, a bar was the last place she’d have picked.

But she’s not Caleb’s friend, and doesn’t even know where any of her friends are, now that she’s actively thinking about it. She takes another drink to swallow the lurch of panic in her gut, and the room sways dangerously. Somewhere to her left, a glass shatters against a wall and she flinches at the subsequent roar of voices that swells with the incident. Beau pushes her way closer to the bar, and orders another drink.

She’s clambered onto the highest bar stool before the drink arrives, not paying any attention to the amount of cash she slides over when the bartender clears their throat. She does spare half a glance for the bartender, however. They’re kind of cute, vaguely feminine features and dark eyes like pools, hair styled in a sloppy sort of pompadour that Beau kind of wants to run her fingers through….

Another patron draws away the bartender’s attention, at the same moment another shout and the sound of glass draws Beau’s. She shivers hard and squints through the pulsing lights in the direction of the shout and sees a pale-looking woman, the lights flickering oddly off of her features. It’s less the woman though, and the man leering over her that grabs Beau’s focus and has her flying up from the bar stool. Because the look on the guy’s face is _familiar_ , and the way the woman is pressed against the bar wall is _familiar_ , the look on her face is _familiar_ and the glass shattered at the woman’s feet is _familiar_ ….

And suddenly Beau is thirteen and there’s glass in her shoulder from where her dad had thrown a bottle at her— from where she’d _dodged_ the bottle her dad had thrown at her and she doesn’t quite know how but she’s got her hands wrapped in leather and with a start she realizes it’s the creep’s jacket and not her dad, and that the creep is actually not as tall as she’d initially thought.

“Leave her the hell alone,” she spits out.

The creep sneers, and Beau fights to maintain her composure because he looks so much like her dad and…

“It’s not fucking worth it, girlie. Just walk away,” he growls out, eyes not leaving the woman that is now behind Beau.

Beau doesn’t think. It’s a fact that she’s been told her whole life. _Why don’t you just think for once, Beauregard? What on earth were you even thinking? Don’t you ever think before you do something? If you would just stop and fucking_ think!

She doesn’t think.

She acts.

Which is how the creep reels away from Beau’s solid punch to his jaw, cursing. Beau curses too, shaking out her fist and angling into a better stance like Dairon had thought her. She’d been aiming for his nose. She gets it the second time, though, and the creep is stopped from retaliating by one of his friends who grabs him and pulls him back and away from her.

“Obann,” the friend mutters, looking over Beau’s shoulder.

She turns, and sees the crowd parted around the bartender, who has a solid looking metal bat swung over one shoulder.

“No, go ahead,” they say, grinning dangerously. “I’ve been getting rusty, give me a reason to use this.”

Beau isn’t sure if the heady feeling is the alcohol or the fact that she still has her memories buzzing through her mind or the fact that her hand still hurts from her sloppy punch. The creep is pulled out of the bar by his friend, cursing the whole way and promising vaguely along the lines of ‘not over.’

“You gonna start something else?” the bartender asks her, and Beau shakes her head and tries to copy their easy grin.

“Nah,” she says, shrugging her shoulder to shake the lingering sensation of glass. “All good.”

The bartender nods, and goes back to the bar, and the crowd filters away reluctantly and….

“Uh. Thank you. You did not have to do that.”

Shit!

Beau turns, too quickly, and comes face to face with the woman she’d…rescued? Too strong of a word, really, and if she’s being honest, this woman is….well.

“Fuck,” Beau breathes, and she’s definitely staring. “You’re uh…really hot.”

“Um,” the woman says, and she’d looked pale before but she definitely blushes a little. “Excuse me?”

“Uh, fuck,” Beau hisses, shaking her head. Ooh, bad idea, that. “You’re welcome! I mean…shit you’re…I kinda lost my asshole friends in this bar and I’m super drunk and you’re super gorgeous and I ah….”

“I’m Yasha,” the woman says through a laugh, and if her blushing was hot her laugh is even hotter and Beau is way too ~~gay~~ drunk for this shit.

“Ah…Beau,” Beau says, charmingly. Disastrously.

Yasha smiles again softly, and nods her head in the direction of the clearing bar room.

“Why don’t we go and find your asshole friends, Beau?”

“Sure, yeah. ‘ts…sounds great!”

And, as it turns out, Molly _had_ come with the group, because when they find everyone Molly is the first to turn and he grins with his whole body in that way that only Molly can do.

“Yasha!” he crows, and throws himself into the woman’s already waiting arms. “You didn’t tell me you were going to be here!”

“Spur of the moment,” Yasha murmurs with a smile, and plants a kiss on Molly’s forehead.

Beau’s heart breaks, just a little.

“Oh well now that just won’t do,” Molly chirps, making absolutely no moves to return to his seat. “You are absolutely going to have to join the party now.”

“Oh no,” Yasha sighs, but she’s still got that same delighted look on her face as Molly. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Whatever you like,” Molly says lowly, looking pleased, and Beau sinks into the booth next to Fjord.

She’s glaring, and Molly notices and bites his tongue at her, and the only reason Beau doesn’t throw herself over the table to strangle him is that she’s realized Caleb is introducing his friend. They end up staying at the bar together for another few hours at least, catching up and figuring out exactly how they all know each other, and Beau has to admit it kind of is hilarious. Apparently, Nott (Caleb’s friend) and Caleb had been in the same foster home together, but when things had fallen through with adoption there’d been talk of splitting them up, so they’d run away until they’d aged out of the system. (Which then begged the question of just how _old_ they were, but Beau doesn’t want to press. Not yet, anyway.)

And then there’s Fjord and Jester. They’d both grown up in the same hometown, but had only met each other when Jester moved here and started up at the local college for art classes. There’s this odd way that they dance around each other that Beau _knows_ must mean they’re into each other in some way, but then also there’s Fjord and Cad, who dance around in much the same way. (Fjord knows Cad because Cad sits at the back of one of Fjord’s night classes and is apparently, hard to ignore.)

And Caleb knows Molly and Fjord because apparently, they all rent at the same apartment complex and are neighbors. Fjord blushes when he talks about being neighbors with Molly, and Molly grins that cheeky grin of his and winks. And Beau knows Caleb from the bus and the diner, and knows Jester and Molly from the diner, and knows Cad from Fjord talking about him, and now knows Yasha and Nott from the bar.

They’re all…a mess, honestly.

But as the clock ticks later and later into the night and they still haven’t left the bar, Beau thinks that maybe they’re a mess she doesn’t mind being a part of.


	9. since there's only one energy drink left in the store, which we both need to survive the disgustingly boring lecture we just discovered we both have, how about we share it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what I'd do without AO3's ridiculously generous character limit for titles, guys.

Fjord is…alright, Nott guesses.

Charming, she supposes. Maybe. Kind of.

Rugged, but not like Caleb is rugged; all worn down and hardened and nervous about things in general.

Although, technically ( _technically_ ) Fjord is rugged in that way, too. Just… _differently._

Fjord is…worn down in a ‘tired of taking care of shit’ kind of way, and hardened in a ‘I haven’t had anyone to take care of my shit’ kind of way, and nervous in a ‘is everybody seeing through my shit?’ kind of way. It’s almost endearing, one could say. If he weren’t so godsdamned stubborn about appearing as if he weren’t all of those things and more.

The worst part is, he’s starting to grow on Nott. Kind of. Sort of. No, absolutely not.

He sits in the back corner of the lecture hall with her, and it’s the only class they share, but it usually comes after a long day of… _working_ (pickpocketing is a valid source of income!) and so usually the last thing Nott wants to do is endure the boring drone of the teacher _and_ have to do it while sitting next to Fjord. She only comes to this thing because Caleb thinks it will be good for her to learn ‘life skills’ or something. (She already knows how to steal and how to drink and how to blow things up, though, so she doesn’t really know what else he thinks she needs to learn.)

But Caleb thinks it will be good for her, so for Caleb, she goes.

She first meets Yasha that way. Not really in person, but…she’ll tune into the college radio station as she walks across campus and she’s grown fond of the quirky, melancholic indie songs and the occasional, soft spoken quips she gets when she listens. Plus, Nott can usually raid the college bookstore for snacks and energy drinks with no one the wiser that she doesn’t _actually_ pay for any of it, and it’s the only thing that gets her through the lectures she has to deal with.

Except this time, when she drifts into the store, Fjord is loitering by the fridges in the back. Specifically, he’s loitering near the _drinks_ fridge, and he’s got a grimace on his face and his hand in the misty-cold of the machine, and Nott feels a low sinking in her stomach even as she darts across the tiled floor to meet him.

“Fjord, you get your fucking hands off my drink!” she screeches as she rushes him.

He jumps, and his fingers slip against the smooth, metallic can. Nott hisses out a ‘ha!’ of triumph and snatches it before it can fall to the ground, and Fjord splutters before finding his anger.

“H-hey!” he snaps, and Nott shifts back on her heels and glares up at him from under her hoodie.

“What?”

She’s already got three candy bars in her hoodie’s pouch, but that doesn’t seem to catch Fjord’s notice, nor does it stop her from shoving the energy drink can in there as well.

“Nott!” Fjord hisses, and he makes a grab for her that she dodges easily.

“You broadcast your movements too much,” Nott scolds him as she straightens back up, and he leans back on his heels and glowers down at her.

From this angle, she can clearly see the way his hair sticks straight up in the very front, like he’s brushed his fingers through it too many times. She can see the way his jaw juts out when he’s angry like this, and the dark circle that stand out like bruises under his eyes and now that she’s looking actually she thinks that really is a bruise who has _Fjord_ been fighting?! He’s not strong enough to get into a physical fight, Nott knows, so how did he get a black eye?

“Nott,” Fjord sighs, and he pinches the bridge of his nose and winces. “Please, can I have that drink back?”

She considers him, more ragged and tired and nervous than usual, with his hair sticking up and his black eye.

“Why?”

He makes a face and crosses his arms. It doesn’t make him look as intimidating as he thinks it does, but she obliges him and shifts back a step, just in case.

“Because I need it if I’m gonna have any hope of surviving this lecture tonight.”

“Hmm,” Nott says, narrowing her eyes and fiddling with the edge of one of the candies in her pocket. “Funny, because I _also_ need it for the lecture. And besides, I’m smaller than you and therefore I have less space in my body for tired energy to go, so there.”

“Wh— that doesn’t make any sense!” Fjord snaps, and his face flushes and the bruise under his eye stands out even darker. “I grabbed it first!”

He sounds like a child; like…. _no_. No, she wasn’t going there.

“It’s mine now,” Nott taunts back, and Fjord groans and glances around the rapidly emptying store.

“Look,” he says, dropping his voice. There’s something in his tone that catches Nott’s attention in spite of herself, and she glances over and meets his gaze out of the corner of her eyes. “We both have to get through this shitty lecture tonight, right? How about we just…share the energy drink? Sounds reasonable, right?”

She’s sure there’s a catch in there somewhere, but he’s entirely sincere and, it _does_ sound…reasonable. She guesses. Maybe.

“I’ll buy you those candy bars in your pocket.”

“Well why didn’t you start with that?! Deal!”

Fjord is…alright. Nott supposes. He still broadcasts his movements too plainly when he moves and his hair still sticks up funny and he thinks he’s strong enough to get into a physical fight. But…Nott thinks she kind of likes that about him.

Kind of.


	10. you're the bastard that keeps parking right in front of my house so i retaliated by keying your car and you caught me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got more feels-y than I was expecting.

  
It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the car, objectively speaking. It’s just some beat up convertible of questionable make. And sure, ok, it’s a garish lavender purple shade with weird gold accents. And yes, maybe it’s got a bunch of odd beads and jewelry and similar paraphernalia dangling from the rearview mirror in such a way as to be impossible for the mirror to function in its intended use.

Beau doesn’t hate the car. If anything, she loves that it stands so obnoxiously out of place, disrupting the status quo in her parents’ fancy neighborhood. Loves the way her dad especially, wrinkles his nose in disgust every time he sees it, and how TJ always tries to grab the dangling jewelry when he’s carried past it.

Whoever owns it certainly doesn’t live here, she knows. Not with a car like that. Not in a neighborhood like this. But it’s not the car that’s the problem. It’s the fact that whatever asshole owns it, parks it directly in front of Beau’s house. Beau’s dad’s house. Whatever.

They park in such a way that, technically, they’re not blocking the driveway, but Beau’s dad still has to do a complicated mini K-turn in his SUV if he wants to go anywhere. And after a month or so of it, he’s gotten well past mildly inconvenienced, beyond frustrated. Now he’s angry, and while Beau can usually just stay out of the house and avoid him when he’s angry like this, it’s summer. Which means there’s no classes she needs to take (or at least no classes which she’s expected to take but that she skips to hang with Caleb at the diner), and even Dairon is away and so she can’t make enough excuses to take the bus into town to get away with it.

Even TJ was starting to notice, and would go quiet whenever their dad would walk into a room, and that was something Beau would not let stand.

So, she decided to take care of things the only way she knew how— by fucking shit up. She’d long perfected the art of climbing in and out of her bedroom window. The windows should, theoretically, be alarmed in a neighborhood and in a house like this, and they were. The downstairs windows, at least. Beau’s room, however, and the other upstairs windows? Nope.

It’s late, but Beau always thrived best at the more shady hours like this. Quiet hours, where everything was still and you could better see things for how they were. Also, actual ‘crime’ was so rare that the cops in this neighborhood were more likely to turn a blind eye because they were too lazy to do shit about it. That’s not to say that Beau had never gotten caught, but that was neither here nor there, and anyway, this wasn’t even something to warrant an arrest. At least, she didn’t think so. Oh well, that was something for day-time Beau to worry about.

Right now, night-time Beau had a set of keys and a garish car in front of her, and a perfectly good alibi. (Her parents were out and she was babysitting her little brother all night like a good sibling. If TJ happened to be sleeping right now and couldn’t attest to the fact, all the better for her.)

She’s halfway through carving the design she’d thought of in her head, a sort of subtle play on the Lionett Wine logo, when she hears a short shuffle of footsteps and a sharp, accented: “What the fuck?”

She jumps so hard she wacks her head on one of the mirrors, and for a second she just sees stars. She hisses a curse that is echoed by the person that is rapidly approaching, and she’s more cursing the fact that she hadn’t even heard them approach in the first place. With all that Dairon had been drilling ‘awareness of surroundings’ into her, she’d still not noticed until the person had been close enough to curse almost right into her ear.

“The hell are you doing to my car?!” the voice comes again, and then she freezes because she knows that lilting accent.

“Molly?!” she hisses, wincing in the glare of a cell phone light as she comes around the side of the vehicle.

“Wh— Beau?” Molly snaps right back, angling the light down so it’s no longer burning through her skull.

“This is your car?” she says, and then she realizes she still has the keys in her hand. She drops them, and they clink incriminatingly at her feet.  
Molly cocks a hip, and she doesn’t need the edges of light from his phone to know he’s giving her the face that goes with it, smug bastard that he is.

“You wanna explain to me what’s going on, or do you wanna explain it to the police? I’m fine either way, just curious is all.”

“Fuck you, Molly, you wouldn’t dare!”

She’s whisper-screaming at this point, but she almost doesn’t care. She knows he wouldn’t, but real fear pounds through her nonetheless. Not so much for the cops; she doesn’t care about anything they might do to her. Her dad on the other hand….

“Fuck you too, dear, but it’s still _my car_ ,” Molly whispers back, and as he shuffles closer, the streetlights flicker on.

“Yeah,” Beau retorts, now able to glare at him properly. Damnit, she was supposed to be inside by now. “ _Your car_ that you keep parking in front of my house!”

He stops then, and glances up the drive and takes in the house in question. “Wait,” he says slowly, eyes skittering across the lights in the windows and her mom’s picturesque flower bed out front. “You live here?”

There’s something in his tone that makes her shift her weight back, crossing her arms instinctively.

“Yeah,” she mutters, eyeing him carefully. “What of it?”

“You live here,” he repeats, turning back on her, and she can’t read the expression on his face. “You… Miss ‘I don’t give a fuck about societal structures or conventions’ who always takes the bus everywhere or bums rides off of Fjord…. You….”

Oh. The look on his face solidifies, and of everyone, she can’t stand the idea of Molly hating her. She grips her arms even tighter, and she wishes she could find that ‘I don’t give a fuck’ side of her, but it just hurts too much to try, standing in front of her parents’ house with Molly like this. There must be something that Molly can see, even in the dim light, because he sighs and that tilt in his posture lessens.

“I never would have taken you for a rich asshole,” Molly says, and she blinks at him.

“Ugh…f-fuck you,” she splutters, caught off guard. He grins at her in the streetlight, and she realizes with a start that it hadn’t been hate on his face at all. She still doesn’t know what it was, but….

“Explains the attitude, actually,” he continues, then glances at the carvings she’d left in the paint. “Doesn’t explain how I’m gonna get these out, though.”

“Shit.” She winces. “Yeah, I kinda did go overboard….”

“Whoa,” Molly deadpans. “Are you actually apologizing? Hang on, I gotta take a video of this iconic moment!”

“You wish,” Beau scoffs, shoving his phone away when he attempts to shove it in her face again. “Just for that, I’m not gonna help you get rid of the scratches.”

“You say scratches like you didn’t gouge out chunks of my car,” Molly says, but he’s grinning now.

“Well,” she grins back. “Maybe next time don’t park your car in the ‘rich asshole’ neighborhood.”

“And miss out on a chance to piss you off? Never.”

“You don’t need more opportunities to do that, believe me,” Beau grumbles, and while a part of it is good natured, the other part can’t get the image of Molly and Yasha at the bar out of her head.

“Wait, you look grumpy and I didn’t even do anything,” Molly protests, and she shuffles her weight and scratches at her undercut, trying to play it off.

“It’s nothing,” she says, but Molly leans in close enough that the vague-dark of his hair solidifies into purple.

“No, wait…you’re actually pissed. What did I do?”

He looks too happy about it to be considered any kind of genuine concern, and it’s that alone, more than anything, that has Beau’s frustration rising. Her mouth moves as a result, and the words are out before she can stop them.

“What’s even the deal with you and Yasha, anyway?”

He blinks at her, clearly not expecting that.   
"Huh?" He says. 

"I mean I didn't think you even went for that type," she continues, and Molly quirks a brow and shoots her a look. 

"That type being...?" he prods, like the shit he is. 

My type, Beau thinks but does not say. She had a penchant for strong, powerful women who could crush her with one hand. (And probably would if she asked nice enough.) 

What she does say instead is: "Female?" because that's relatively more socially acceptable. 

Molly giggles, and the way he does it it simultaneously splits his face into that signature smirk of his. The one that makes Beau want to punch him, and not affectionately like she does with Caleb. 

"Well dear," Molly all but purrs, leaning against the side of his car. "If you really want to know about my sexual prowess, you're more than welcome to join."

She very nearly _does_ punch him, then. She skitter-steps forward and the only reason she doesn't is because he dodges. And then immediately doubles over lauging, his cackle echoing off the quiet streets of the neighborhood. 

"You should see your face!" He snorts, and she shifts her weight back and clenches her hands to try and not swing at him again. "Oh, you make it so easy!" 

"I'm going to kill you," Beau decides, and Molly straightens with another low giggle at the tail end of his laugh. 

"But if you do that, how will you ever get a chance with Yasha?" 

"Dammit Molly!" She starts at him again in spite of her attempt for control, and he backs away, hands coming up in surrender. 

"Ok, ok, I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he says rapidly, and something almost like serious comes into his face. Almost. 

"It's not...we're not....romantically exclusive, or anything like that if that's what you're worrying about," Molly continues, and Beau presses her lips tightly together before answering. 

"But you _are_ a thing?" She says, and Molly lifts a brow at her. Or, she thinks he does. It was far darker than what felt like only moments before, and even in their patch of streetlight it was hard to tell what exact face Molly was making. 

"We're all technically just things, aren't we?" He says airily, and she almost punches him again. 

"Fucking shit, Molly!" She snaps, and he crosses his arms and fixes her with a glare through his curls. 

"Why?"

"Why what?" Beau practically growls, and Molly's glare sharpens enough that she nearly steps back. 

"Why Yasha?" he says intently. 

And, oh. That...that's.... 

"Oh," she says, and Molly rocks back on his heels and stares at her coolly. 

"You know she's been through shit," he continues. 

"I...yeah, I know," Beau mumbles. She drops her eyes, unable to keep meeting the icy heat of Molly's stare. 

She does know. They all know how Obann had manipulated and abused Yasha during their time together; knows that even now, the creep was still out there, somewhere. Definitely not done with her-- with any of them. But that was also just the thing; Yasha had been through so much but she still hadn't lost her heart. She'd kept that same, tender kindness, and hopeful view of things. She struggled, sure. There had been bad days. But she didn't stop fighting for those good days, either. She's beautiful and soft and all the things that Beau is not, and she deserves so much more than anything Beau could give her; could even hope to give her. But she wanted to at least try and....and....

And she'd been saying all of that out loud. 

"Fuck," she says, mouth snapping shut. 

Her hands twist at her sides and she promptly crosses and tucks them under her arms to keep from flapping.

"Well, that too, I'm sure," Molly quips, and though his lips quirk up, there's still enough of that serious in his eyes to worry her. 

"Well," he says again, slowly. "I uh. I think I underestimated you. You'll do just fine." 

Beau doesn't have time to process what that means, because he hops up and over the door of his car, sliding smoothly into the driver's seat and starting the car all in one, fluid motion. 

"I'll text you," he says, as he backs up enough to be just shy of running over her toes. 

"Why the _hell-_ -?" She hisses, flipping him off through through the glare of the streetlight for the near toe crushing. 

"So you have my number," he says back, sliding a completely unnecessary pair of sunglasses onto his face, tipping them down his nose so his eyes can wink at her. 

"What for?" She glares in response to his cheeky smirking, which just makes him smirk harder. 

"So I can text you Yasha's number," he says, and Beau thinks this can't be real. 

He drives off before she can come up with an articulate response, and she almost settles on just cursing. Then he backs up again suddenly, swerving expertly around her and tipping his sunglasses up to wink at her again. 

"Just so you know, we're kind of a package deal. Hope that's alright!" 

Then he's off again, and Beau supposes it's going to have to be. She heads back inside her house (her dad's house, still) and wakes TJ to watch cartoons with her. She'd never admit to being a fan of Vox Machina out loud, but it's easier to watch it with her brother (or Fjord) than by herself, because Fjord just doesn't care, and TJ is the target demographic so he loves it by default.  
Halfway through their binge, she gets a text from an unknown number, that contains another phone number and the message:

_All things considered, you could do worse than us._

She scoffs, and saves Molly in her phone as 'Pain in my ass' with a smiling imp emoji, and Yasha as simply 'Yasha,' a flower emoji blooming from her name. She debates for two more questionable episodes of Vox Machina before finally texting Yasha. 

_Hey._

She hates it as soon as it's sent, but by the time she decides to follow it up with 'how are you' it's already been too long with no answer to send another text without coming across like a weirdo. (She was a weirdo, but Yasha didn't need to know that.) Not right away, at least.

Yasha texts back at the tail end of the cartoon's credits and Beau's subsequent existential crisis. 

_hey_

And then, a minute later

 _how are you?_

And yeah, ok, Molly was right. She could definitely do way worse. 


	11. you forgot to remove your snarky sticky note comments in this textbook and since i got kicked out of the library for laughing too loudly, i'm going to reply to each and every one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *goes to write a lighthearted bit of empire siblings* 
> 
> *woops my hand slipped and there's angst*

The Archive is Dairon’s personal collection. As the school librarian, it is their job to curate the vast collection of books that the library has to offer— as long as those books corroborate with the approved titles of the district, that is. You will find nothing on the shelves that is ‘untoward’— nothing controversial such as teenagers having sex, the inclusion of alcohol or underage drug use. No valuable life lessons on human decency or civil rights, because the stories that contain those messages also contain *gasp* profane language! Or worse…magic and fantasy! The horror of exposing children to ideas outside of their own personal worldviews, it is something that the school district does not stand for.

And so, there is the Archive.

A hidden series of shelves in the library that only Dairon (and Beauregard, through Dairon) has access to. These shelves don’t exist. They are not part of the library, and if one were to search, it would be impossible to notice anything untoward. These shelves contain Dairon’s personal collection, or all of the banned and controversial books and academic that the school does not allow.

Beauregard had kindly (after, ok, maybe a _tiny_ bit of blackmail) agreed to take Caleb to the library, introduced him to Dairon, and gotten him permission to search and read anything he liked from the Archive. The Archive doesn’t exist, but neither does Caleb in this moment, so engrossed as he is in the material before him. It is one of the thicker tomes on language and linguistics, banned because the linguists who had published it were infamous for some…admittedly rather questionable experiments to get to their results.

(Caleb is well versed in the ways of questionable experiments. All things considered, he thinks he could manage of these quite well. But that’s a dangerous path to tread.)

But the resulting theories on linguistic development is quite interesting, to be fair. The belief that language is simply a conditioned response, something that the brain is programmed into based on being rewarded or punished, is one of the more ‘out there’ approaches to development. But Caleb is also ‘out there’, which is why he’s reading it.

He’d just gotten to a passage describing the process behind one such controversial experiment involving a dog and a bell, when he stumbles upon a sticky note attached at the bottom of the paragraph. It’s a bright neon shade, the color standing in such stark contrast to the page that it momentarily blinds Caleb. The lime green is all he sees at first, so torn from his focused spiral, that it takes him a bit to realize there are words on the sticky note, and that it’s not just an oddly placed bookmark.

_I wonder what would happen if you took all these scientists and shoved them in a room with no toilet, and then conditioned them that the sound of a bell meant they’d be taken to the bathroom…._

It startles Caleb, not so much for the irreverence, but the admitted attention to the details and subsequent flaws of the experiment in the first place. Then he reads it again, because he thinks that perhaps it _would_ be interesting to see how the human brain would respond to such conditioning versus an animal’s. Then he gets stuck, because he’d been imagining it in the framing of the original experiment, and his brain had suddenly thrown to him the mental image of a bunch of pristine scientists desecrating a sterile lab environment with excrement.

And then he’s laughing and unable to catch it in time, so it bursts out far too loud in this space that is not supposed to exist, that he does not exist in.

Dairon kicks him out immediately. Bans him for a whole day.

Caleb thinks about calling Beau (it had been her handwriting, he’s certain of it) to complain to her that her antics had gotten him banned. Call because he does not text well, because he has both a Zemnian keyboard and a Common keyboard on his phone and uses both and so his messages are impossible to translate; and also because calling annoys her and he wants to annoy her back.

Then he thinks of a better idea. Admittedly petty, and more than a bit foolish. But he’s feeling in a foolish mood.

The next time Dairon lets him back into the library, he finds the linguistics book and pens his responds on a bright orange sticky note of his own.

 _I imagine they would shit all over their precious lab equipment._ And then he doodles a crude little pile of shit wearing a lab coat and glasses. It’s not as refined as Jester’s drawings, but it serves its purpose.

It’s a week later than he finds another sticky note. There is a sort of communal version of each of the textbooks that each class has to offer, that stays in the library but which anyone can use to study with as long as they don’t take it out of the library. There had been one daring kid who had tried, apparently, a long time ago. He’d never been heard from again.

It’s the communal textbook on physics that Caleb is studying through now, comparing his notes with the material. Bright neon green assaults him on an article regarding some scientists who had confirmed ancient theories that stated the Earth was in fact round.

_Next they’re going to tell us that gravity exists, too!_

Caleb snorts and bites his palm to keep it from breaking into a full laugh, but even then, enough of a laugh burst out that there is a sharp clearing of a throat by his elbow. He flinches in the face of Dairon’s wrath, and deflates at the distinct lack of humor in the situation he is found in: banned for a week, pending permanence. So then he furiously sticky notes as many snarky responses in as he can in the allotted time before the library closes and his week-long library perdition begins.

And then he _does_ call Beau, because this meant war. (He texts her first, just to be extra annoying.)

 _“Caleb, what the actual fuck, man?”_ is the first thing he hears when she picks up the phone. Then the distinct, albeit muffled sound of raised voices.

“Is um…is this not a good time?” he asks, brow furrowing as he looks at his phone for the time.

(He doesn’t need to, of course, knows that it’s exactly 6:32 pm before the numbers light up and confirm it.)

He was just curious to see it, because it is 6:32 pm and therefore, far too early for Beau’s father to be home. Unless he’s got his days wrong and…but no, it _is_ Thursday.

 _“What?”_ Beau, says, then pauses. _“Oh. No, sorry. Hang on.”_

There is the odd, shuffling static of movement and what sounds like a screen door or a window sliding open. Then the tinny, muffled background noise of ‘outside’ and a sigh from Beau.

 _“Ok,”_ she says, brusquely as always. _“What’s up? Why are you sending me vague angry Zemnian messages?”_

 _And calling me_ , goes unsaid but heard nonetheless between them.

“Well,” Caleb begins, finding some of his previous irritation amongst his concern. “I think it only fair to let you know that your antics ha—”

 _“Oh **shit** ,_” Beau says suddenly, cutting him off. There’s the sharp squeaky slide of that same window or door, and the background muffle of raised voices and then her voice comes again, farther away from the phone. “ _Hey buddy…what? Yeah, you can hang here with me T— No you can **not** touch that! Dammit Caleb, hang on.” _

The sound goes away completely, and he is left reeling on mute because aside from the odd gentle tone so unlike Beauregard- for a moment there had been another voice under hers; a small, high babble. And it is odd, but perhaps not so odd, because Beau hardly ever talked about her home life, and after all it is not unheard of to have a sibling, but Beau had never mentioned….

 _“Ugh, sorry_ ,” Beau comes back, and there is the muffle of raised voices, somehow muffled further, and the high background babble much closer now. “ _You were saying…”_

“Beauregard,” Caleb says slowly, because he is still processing. “Do you have…is there a small child with you?”

There is a pause, and a muffled curse and then. “ _No._ ”

Her tone is no arguments sharp, but there is a slight waver to it that he doesn’t want to think of as fear, but he knows her well enough to know is not _not_ -fear.

“Um…”

 _“You were_ saying _?_ ” Beau cuts in before he can finish the thought, and right, he was supposed to be mad at her.

“You got me banned from the library,” he says, but now most of his frustration is lost under concern and curiosity and falls flat.

 _“Wait, what did_ I _do?”_ she argues, and he sighs. Maybe not _all_ of the frustration.

“Your sticky note commentary, while entertaining, was not conducive for quiet studying.”

“ _Ha ha, oh shit! You_ found those!? _Dude, I did that ages ago and just now started getting notes back…wait was that_ you? _”_

He appreciates hearing the mirth back in her voice, even if there is a slight distracted tinge to it. No doubt, due to the small child that is cohabiting her space that he is not allowed to acknowledge.

“Ja,” Caleb mumbles, strolling towards the edge of the block and the waiting bus stop. “And Dairon was not as amused by them as I was.”

Beau snorts, then goes quiet for a moment. Caleb realizes, as the bus pulls up with a jerky squeal, that the muffled raised voices in the background had stopped.

“Beau?”

 _“Hang on,”_ she says. He hangs on, climbing onto the bus and settling into his usual seat and looking for her to clamber on with him even though he _knows_ that’s not going to happen.

 _“Ok,”_ she says when she comes back. _“So wait, Dairon kicked you out of the library because you found my notes?”_

“Nein,” Caleb admits, flipping open his sketchbook and trying to draw the idea of Beau and a small child maybe sibling that is in his head. “Dairon kicked me out of the library because I found your notes and could not stop laughing at them, and as I was in the Archive and it is not supposed to exist, I got banned.”

 _“Dope,”_ Beau laughs, and he scoffs and flips a new page. _“Not you getting banned, I mean. That sucks, for you. But pretty neat my notes didn’t go to waste.”_

“You could say that,” Caleb hums, redefining some of the features in his sketch. “Hey, Beau?”

_“Hang on, is this serious Caleb right now?”_

He blinks, adjusts his phone on his ear and his pencil in his hand. “’Serious Caleb?’” he repeats carefully.

_“Your voice got all…never mind, what?”_

He didn’t think his tone had changed that much, he was more thinking out loud than serious. Did she think he was being serious? Well, he kind of was, but was he really that obvious? Did he do this often enough for it to be obvious?

_“Caleb?”_

“Ja, I’m here.”

 _“You were gonna ask me something?”_ Beau prompts, and he nods to himself.

Stay on task, Widogast.

“Yea, I was just curious…are you and Fjord and Jester alright?”

 _“Fuck,”_ Beau growls lowly into the phone, then. _“Shit! I mean…TJ don’t you repeat any of those words!”_

 _“Shit,”_ the small ‘not there’ child voice says from the background.

“ _Oh, dad’s gonna kill me,”_ Beau moans. _“Caleb, do me a favor- don’t let Jester plan my funeral. She’ll put clay dick statues in all the flowers.”_

 _“Fuck!”_ TJ, the small child that was definitely not there cheers.

_“On second thought, I do want her to plan my funeral. She’ll make it way too ridiculous and my parents probably wouldn’t come.”_

“I sincerely doubt that that is necessary,” Caleb murmurs, a touch fond.

 _“Why are you asking if we’re alright?”_ Beau asks, and her forlorn speculation is lost in her sudden suspicion. _“Course we are.”_

“It is just…Fjord had mentioned you weren’t talking at the moment, and I was just concerned as it has been a number of weeks now and Jester is ah…anxious.”

He wishes he could see her face right now. He’s much better at gauging her mood when he can see her, but he has to settle for her quiet muttering and cursing over the phone, because he called her after all.

 _“Maybe they should have thought of that before they tried interfering in shit they shouldn’t,”_ Beau snaps.

“Um…well….”

 _“I have to go._ ”

He thinks at first she’s ignoring him, dismissing his concerns outright in that ‘I don’t want to do this’ way she did. But he hears the undercurrent of urgency in her tone, the high babble of not-there TJ softer and plaintive in the background, and so he goes to give a farewell, but she has already hung up.

Oh.

Well then.

 _Sorry._ Comes a text from her seconds later. _I’ll call you later._

(She does not, in fact, call later.)

Caleb sticks her lime green sticky notes over his sketches of her and the undefinable portrait of the real-but-unmentionable TJ and waits.

And plans.


	12. falling farther from what we are (these conversations kill)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Driving faster in my car  
> Falling farther from where we are  
> Smoke a cigarette and lie some more  
> These conversations kill....
> 
> \- Stone Temple Pilots 'Big Empty Conversations Kill'
> 
> * * * *   
> This chapter features frank discussions of abuse. While non graphic, there are references to previous abuse as well as a brief anxiety attack and Beau-levels of attempted self-sabotage. Just a heads up for safety. 
> 
> Hope ya'll enjoy!
> 
> \- Raven

It’s pushing some time close to evening when Beau gets a text from Caleb. It’s entirely in Zemnian, and so by the time she’d translated it to ‘picking you up at 3’ –after fact checking the online translation in her books, because she is nothing of not an expert researcher— it’s 3:05 and Caleb is knocking on her front door.

“Fucking shit, Caleb,” she hisses, yanking the door open and wedging herself into it. “You _know_ you can’t just text me and show up like this.”

_Can’t just knock on the fucking door…._

“Beauregard?” her mother calls from behind her, and she curses again and unfolds from the frame. “Who’s at the door?”

“No one, mom.” She shoots Caleb a dark look and peels back further. “Just—”

“Ah, yes hallo,” Caleb says smoothly, stepping into the living room bold as fuck. “My name is Caleb Widowgast and I am a friend of Beauregard’s.”

“A friend?” her mom says, and her brow lifts at Beau.

“ _Just_ a friend,” Beau is quick to snap, wishing she could kill him and be done with it.

“Yes,” Caleb says, oblivious. “I am here to spirit your daughter away for illicit activities.”

Beau doesn’t know if it’s Caleb- dressed as he is in ripped dark jeans and sweater and trench jacket- or just the way he says it, so straight faced and open. But her mother snorts, just a bit, an amused smile playing at her lips.

“Are you now?” she says, in that lighthearted condescension that she does so well. “Well it wouldn’t be the first time, would it.”

“Ok no, we’re _going_ ,” Beau says, shoving Caleb bodily out the door. He stumbles over the stoop, but she’s got her hands so wrapped in his jacket that he doesn’t fall far.

“Pleasure to meet you Ma’am!” he chimes over his shoulder, the shit that he is. Molly had been influencing him too much. She almost lets go of his coat and lets him hit the ground, for that.

“Beauregard,” her mom says, and she pauses her murderous thoughts, glancing over her shoulder warily. “Don’t stay out too late, I’m making dinner at seven.”

“Ok, cool,” Beau mutters with a noncommittal shrug. And then she’s out the door and somehow Caleb is the one dragging her, until she’s clambering into the passenger seat of a beaten and brown Toyota.

“What was that about?” Caleb asks, cautious and not at all subtle.

“Nothing, just letting me know to be back by dinner,” she mumbles, grimacing at the lumpy cushioned seat.

“Seven,” he says back, committing the time to the clock in his brain.

“Yeah,” Beau says shortly.

“Because your father is going to be home at seven, and so you need to be home before him.”

Molly’s _definitely_ been influencing him. He used to keep those sort of observations to himself.

“Your car is shit,” she snaps, instead of answering.

Caleb blinks at her, wounded. “My car is not shit, he murmurs slowly.

“Your car _is_ shit,” Beau insists as he backs out of the driveway. “And so are you. The fuck are you doing at my house?”

“Ah. Well,” Caleb says, eyes too fixed on the empty road. “I am just about to go into my shift, and I know that you like to hang out there, and so I thought ‘hey, why don’t I go and get Beauregard?’ and so I did.”

“Smooth,” she deadpans, punching him at the light.

“I thought so,” Caleb says, shrugging her punch from his shoulder.

“When did you even get a car anyway?”

“Last month,” he says slowly. “Erm. Fjord helped me find it.”

That explains it.

“Oh,” she says, unable to figure out what it is about hearing Fjord’s name that’s bothering her.

In what is definitely a much shorter time than a bus ride would have been, they pull up to the diner. Beau bristles as Caleb parks and there is an unmistakable row of multicolored cars— Molly’s purple convertible, Fjord’s cornflower/ocean blue sedan, even Cad’s hippie wagon which for sure must have been blackmailed out of his brother’s possession.

“Caleb,” she growls, and his face twists.

“Just…come inside?”

“Fuck you,” she spits. She slams his car door when she gets out and feels bad about it seconds later, then feels bad that she feels bad and it just pisses her off more.

“Oh, Beau’s here,” Caduceus drawls out from the corner booth when they walk in, not the least bit sarcastic. “That’s just great.”

Fjord straightens in the booth beside him, fingers tight around a mug of tea on the table before him. Jester twists around the booth from the opposite side, making no pretenses about staring, and her face lights up when she sees Beau. It just makes that bad feeling in her gut twist all the sharper, especially when she sees that Molly is perched on top of the booth beside Jester, feet on the seat where usually one more would be sitting.

“Where’s Yasha?” she can’t help but ask, even though she already knows.

Cad’s face falls in soft grief, and Molly’s feet stop kicking on the seat.

“Right,” Beau says gruffly, clearing her throat and leaping over the top of the booth to slide down into the spot taken by Molly’s legs. He yelps and jerks back, reeling over the other side, and she feels moderately better.

“That is…another conversation that we also need to have. At some point,” Caleb says softly, sliding into the booth beside Jester. Molly picks himself up and resumes his position on the back of the cushioned booth, feet tapping an idle rhythm on the seat.

“Why?” Beau mutters, arms crossing sharply and trying to avoid Fjord’s gaze. “She’s made her feelings pretty clear where she stands.”

Molly kicks Beau in the back of her head with his heel. He’s not wearing any shoes, because of course he isn’t, but it still hurts.

“Asshole!” she bites out, wincing away.

“Obnoxious,” he pokes back, voice a low hiss that holds none of his teasing warmth.

“You know as well as any of us that she didn’t exactly have a say in that,” Fjord says delicately. It’s the first time she’s heard his voice in a while, and she has to fight the way it feels like a blow to the gut.

“Because Obann is a manipulative dick!” Jester finishes, sharp and furious.

“Quite,” Cad agrees sagely, nodding into his own tea mug.

Obann was a dick, Beau wasn’t denying that. But she also couldn’t deny the way Yasha’s continued absence still stung like rejection, especially since the attack on Dairon’s library. Dairon hadn’t been there, thankfully, but had heard secondhand after a group of people matching Obann’s gang had entered and overturned the place, slaughtering a number of the librarians that had been working. Even Zeenoth hadn’t made it unscathed, part-time as he was at the hospital, and Beau didn’t want to admit the way that especially wrung some kind of feeling out of her.

“Regardless,” Caleb cuts back in, and Beau leans back against Molly’s feet so he’ll stop kicking her. “We do have some important things to discuss, if you’ll indulge us, Beauregard.”

“Don’t you have a shift to get to?” she bites out through her teeth.

(She knows for a fact that she can break Molly’s leg, and she’s trying to weigh the pros and cons in her head. Pro: he’ll think twice before he kicks her again. Con: Fjord will give her that disappointed look he does and Jester will be upset and Caleb will flinch at her capacity for violence and Cad will do that ‘understanding counselor’ thing he’s too damn good at and Yasha….isn’t here.)

“My shift does not start until four,” Caleb says quietly, and she wishes Jester weren’t in between the two of them suddenly because she wants to punch Caleb and break Molly’s leg all at once.

There must be something that shows, because somehow she’s too open when she’s high strung like this and the fact that she’s high strung like this is a bad sign in itself. She’s too high strung and she’s settled on the pro and she wants to break Molly’s leg except he’s not even kicking her at this point but it doesn’t even matter and all of it _shows_ and—

“Beau, breathe.”

She blinks a bit first, and she’s not sure but the table flipped without her realizing it because Fjord is now on her left and Jester is on her right, and Fjord’s got his hand gentle and firm around her the back of her neck and Jester’s fingers tangled in hers and _damn it_ why—

“Just breathe for a sec, ok,” Fjord says again, and she wants to find the breath to tell him to fuck off, but can’t.

“I’m still pissed at you.” Oh, hey.

It’s said through chattering teeth, the edge of the anxiety fading away but leaving just enough to leave her shaky and wired in all the wrong ways, but she manages it at least.

(The con still comes.)

Fjord’s face falls, and Jester’s fingers slip slow from her grasp. And Molly huffs a sharp sigh and Caleb frowns and Cad just nods easily at her, no judgement.

“See, this is why communication is important,” he rumbles gently. “All relationships need it to survive properly, just like water for plants.”

Don’t say don’t don’t say it don’t—

“What relationship?”

(Caleb still flinches at her capacity for violence.)

(She does too.)

“You say communication’s important, Caduceus but that goes both ways. Three ways, whatever.”

“Hard to communicate when you wouldn’t even _talk_ to us,” Fjord bites out, and he’s pissed and too close and it shouldn’t scare her but it does.

“I wasn’t talking to you because you decided to try and mess in shit you had no right to!” she bites right back.

She’s too wedged into the corner of the booth; he’s too close. It’s Fjord, it’s just Fjord but he’s pissed and too close and she’s too wedged in!

“Fjord,” Molly snaps suddenly, and she jumps and hates him for it.

“Yeah,” Fjord says, clipped. He gets up and for a split second it’s someone else looming over her. And then he’s gone, and the tight feeling in Beau’s chest fades.

“ _Scheisse_ ,” Caleb hisses from the opposite side of the table. “I did not think this through.”

“It was a great idea, love,” Molly chirps, but his voice is tight and his feet twitch like he wants to kick them again.

“Beau,” Jester says when he goes, voice high and worried. “You know we care about you, right? That’s why we worry about you…we want to make sure you’re alright.”

“I’m fine,” she retorts, irritated and also missing the weight of Fjord’s presence and irritated because of that, too.

“ _Right_ ,” Molly drawls, and his feet do start kicking again. “Which is why you haven’t returned any of our messages or talked to Fjord or Jester in over a month, and also why you flinched a second ago when Fjord was getting angry.”

“Easy now, Molly,” Cad chides softly. 

“What do you want me to say?” Beau blurts out, anxious and wedged amongst her group as she is. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Fjord coming back from the direction of the restroom.

“What do you want me to say?” she repeats, and she hates how small she is, how small they’ve made her with their _care_.

“Nothing that you don’t want to give,” Cad assures gently, as Fjord sits back down.

“Nothin’ that we wouldn’t want to hear,” he says, and there’s movement in the corner of her eye and she’s debating whether she needs to avoid it when it stops.

She blinks, realizes she’s got Fjord’s wrist in her hand— that he’d been trying to put his hand on her shoulder.

“Sorry,” she mumbles quickly, dropping it.

“Beau?” Jester presses, twining their fingers together. “You know we care about you, right?”

“And, for your safety,” Caleb adds quietly, brows raised above the rim of his glasses. They make him look owlish and innocent and she’s not sure if it’s that or just all of them that has her talking.

“It’s not my safety I’m worried about.”

Her admission goes cold out in the air, in the middle of the table. Caduceus frowns solemnly and Fjord grips his mug tighter and Molly goes entirely still.

“I…I have a little brother. TJ— Thoreau Junior.”

Caduceus grimaces, a soft noise of displeasure rumbling in his throat.

“Terrible thing, to give your child the burden of your own name,” he says lowly, and Beau snorts because well, yeah. That’s one way of looking at it.

Caleb is the only one who isn’t surprised by this information, but he still at least nods in acknowledgement.

“You have a brother?” Jester repeats, soft.

Beau nods and wishes she had something other than Jester’s hands to wrap her own around. Something that won’t break if she squeezes.

“How old is he?” Fjord asks.

“Two, almost three,” she answers, and she can’t help the bittersweet smile that twists her face as she fishes out her phone to find a picture of him.

“Aw, he’s so cute!” Jester coos as she takes in his dimples and round baby face and thick, wavy curls.

“Yeah, don’t let that face fool you,” Beau murmurs as Jester passes her phone around. “He’s a little shit when he wants to be.”

“Someone related to you? Inconceivable!” Molly chirps, casting a fond look at the photo before handing it on to Fjord.

“You don’t get to use The Princess Bride against me like that,” Beau scolds, and Molly bites his tongue at her and for a moment, everything is normal again.

Then Fjord says: “Has your dad ever…?”

And the cold comes rushing back in, a stone settling heavy in her gut.

“No,” she says quickly, cutting him off before he can finish. “And I plan on keeping it that way.”

“By sacrificing yourself? That’s not fair to you either, Beau!” he says, and she scoffs, sharp and bitter.

“Since when has anything in any of our lives been _fair_?”

“I’m sorry,” Cad breaks in, gentle and confused. “I feel like I’m missing something here.”

“Don’t,” Beau warns, but Fjord’s already talking.

“Beau showed up at my apartment beat bloody one night, little over a month ago.”

“ _Fjord_ ,” Beau tries again, eyes flickering around the table.

Caleb’s brows go up, and then furrow with concern. Cad frowns, his shoulders tucking in subconsciously. Molly’s lips try to flicker into a grin, but don’t quite manage it successfully.

“Who’d you piss of this time?” he ribs, and Fjord glares and says:

“She’d come from home.”

Caleb jerks, startled, half-formed Zemnian whispering and faltering to the table. Molly hisses sharply, and Cad looks even more confused than before, head tilting softly to glance across at Beau.

“What?” he asks, voice low and almost afraid. As if unable to comprehend the idea that home could be anything but a haven.

Beau shrinks under the collective weight of it all, even as she jerks her head around to glare at Fjord.

“It’s not…you make it sound….”

“Worse?” he finishes for her, jaw tight. “I can’t imagine there’s somethin’ better than _that_.”

“Like it happens all the time,” she tries anyway. Caleb gives her a look across the table, mouth a thin line.

“It _doesn’t_ ,” she snaps at him. “And anyway, that was the first time it was bad enough to….”

“To draw _blood_? That shouldn’t be the important factor here!”

Fjord’s angry again, and as much as she knows it’s not directed at her, the other part of her fights to cower away regardless. The main part of her, the part that’s angry too, snarls displeasure and it’s that false courage that has her arguing back.

“Yeah well, and what did you decide to do about it? Take it to the _cops_?” The bitterness is back, but so is the emotion she’d been trying to suppress and it chokes in her throat and makes her voice shake. “You did _shit_ is what you did. The number of times I’ve been dragged in to them growing up…only thing they did was threaten to tell my dad the next time I gave them trouble.”

Jester inhales sharply and the rest of the air around the table seems to flee with it.

“They can do that?”

“They’re just waiting for an excuse _not_ to, at this point,” Beau mumbles, unable to meet any of their gazes. She snatches Molly napkin and fiddles with it, and he’s so stunned that he doesn’t even try to stop her.

“As fucked up as that is,” Caleb finally manages, delicate even as he trips over the words. “It does not change the fact that what your father did to you is unacceptable. Also your isolating yourself from us…that is also not ok, Beauregard.”

“You guys…” Beau shrinks, napkin forgotten in her lap as she folds her arms around herself. “You keep making such a big deal over...”

“You?” Caduceus finishes. “Well, yeah.”

“I was gonna say nothing,” Beau mumbles back, and Molly kicks her in the head again.

“Ow, you dick!”

“Sorry, you were saying something stupid so I had to intervene,” he says, and kicks her again, only slightly lighter.

“You’re not nothing, Beau!” Jester cries, and before she can process, Jester wraps her in a hug. “Not to us.”

“Never,” Fjord agrees, eyes solemn even as he smiles at her.

“ _Du bist mein Geschwister,_ ” Caleb murmurs. “We get on each other’s nerves, but that is what siblings do, ja? We look out for each other.”

“Damn it,” Beau hisses. She swallows hard and finds out her mouth tastes salty, and blinks and realizes she’s crying. “You’re all assholes.”

“But we’re _your_ assholes!” Jester sing-songs, and Cad nods across the table at her in agreement.

She doesn’t know how long this insular little moment lasts. Long enough, she supposes, for Caleb to finally clock in. He comes back seconds later and folds his hands on the table like this is a business meeting suddenly. His sweater collar is crooked though, and it completely ruins the serious image he’s trying to project.

“So,” he says, and even though his voice is clipped, it’s not unkind. “Here is what is going to happen.”

“What?” She deadpans, suddenly getting the feeling that she wasn’t going to like this.

“You are going to _text us_ ,” Caleb continues, and she swears she can feel actual heat when he glares at her. “Whenever you feel unsafe…if you need to be out of the house. Anything. You _text us_ , ja. And we will come get you and make sure you’re ok.”

“What, you think I need a babysitter or something now?”

Caleb scowls, and Jester deflates with a soft whine, and Molly tries to kick her again but she grabs his ankle this time, putting just the right amount of pressure so he knows she’s serious.

“Molly I swear to _fucking_ Ioun I will break your leg if you do that shit again.”

“Pretty sure Ioun doesn’t fuck, that’s the Moonweaver’s job,” he quips back.

She adjusts her grip on his ankle and he flinches, recoiling.

“Fuck, alright!”

“Beau.”

She flinches too, but Fjord’s hand is gentle as it comes down on her shoulder, turning her back so she has no choice but to focus on him.

“Promise you’ll text us?” he says softly, and she feels her shoulders hitch up at the tone in his voice.

“Ok,” she whispers. “Ok.”

“Good,” he says back, just as soft. “I…we couldn’t stand it if something happened to you.”

“Yeah, well…I know…I know you guys care. And uh. I’m sorry. For not talking before.”

“Does this mean you’re not mad at us anymore?” Jester asks, and how could Beau ever stay mad when she gives her a face like that?

“Nah, I’m not…I wasn’t really mad at you guys.”

Scared. She’d been so scared of losing them, and she’d figured if she was going to, better it be on her terms. But she can’t say all of that, because then she’d have to admit that they _mean_ something to her, and that. Well. She’s not quite ready for that.

“Oh, great!” Molly chimes, and his feet kick gleefully at the cushions of the booth again. “Now that all the emotional stuff is done can we _please_ order some food?”

“Fuck you Molly,” Beau snaps, and the laughter, when it comes, soothes the remaining anxiety from her chest.

Caleb goes to do his job and brings back drinks and food and pretends not to notice Molly adding something from a flask to everyone’s beverages. They end up staying until 6 before Caleb insists that Beau needs to go home, and then there’s a brief scramble for keys and squabbles over rides. Fjord and Jester end up driving her home, or rather, Fjord drives and Jester chatters away from the backseat and Beau lets herself hope, if only for this moment, that maybe she doesn’t have to lose them after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which this was meant to simply be non-linear, piecemeal drabbles but instead somehow becomes *a thing.*


	13. my friend dragged me to this party and i've spent the past ten minutes complaining to you about how boring it was only to find out that you're the host

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in which even floaty hot bois cannot escape the weird au

Caleb is not what one would call ‘a party person.’ He is barely a person person, and that is on the good days. On the bad days, it’s all he can manage to be around the rest of his friends. (On the _really_ bad days, even that is a stretch.)

And yet somehow, he had let himself get dragged to a party.

In his defense…Jester had given him that face she makes, where she’ll furrow her brows and tilt her head just so and. Well. You don’t say no to Jester when she makes a face like that.

(Caleb adamantly denied that there was anything else to it.)

But that still doesn’t take into account the _party_.

Or the location.

Or the _people_.

So many people, all crowded into this space. It is a massive space, really, but still. It is a mass of roiling bodies and sounds and lights and smells, and amongst all those bodies there is of course the _social_ atmosphere of it.

He barely makes it to a wall before his breath starts to leave him.

Beau is right beside him, suddenly and solidly. She doesn’t look at him, doesn’t say anything. Just crosses her arms and lets him lean against her until his breath returns.

“You good?” she says, eyes skating across what surely must be his very pale face.

“Ja,” he lies, dragging his scarf up over his mouth to hide the way he still feels like he wants to throw up.

“Caleb,” Beau presses, and he groans in answer.

So they stand there a bit longer, and Caleb desperately wishes he hadn’t said yes to coming, and wishes he weren’t such a screw up, that even a simple party weren’t such an issue and wishes…..

“….and so then I was like ‘oh yeah? Well you’re going _down_!’ and he was all ‘I’m not going down…unless it’s on you,’ like he’s being clever or some gross shit. And so then Yasha just grabs me and fucking makes out with me right there in front of the dude, and you should have seen his _face_ , I swear it was so perfect and….”

“ _Was is das?_ ” Caleb mutters, coming back to himself enough to realize Beau was still there.

“Oh, dope, you’re on earth again,” she says, not even bothering with delicacy, as always. “Are you actually cool this time?”

Strangely, he is. Or, thinks he is. There’s this odd bubble of _something_ in his chest, but his body is so wrung from his break down that the only thing his brain can muster up to feel about it is ‘meh.’

“ _Ja, ich bin gut_.”

Beau makes a face at him, and he mimics it back to her to try and figure out what it means.

“ _Was?_ ” he snaps, when it still doesn’t click. It feels like anger on his face, but Beau’s jaw gets tight when she’s angry and his jaw doesn’t feel tight so he knows she’s not angry but it’s something.

“Fuck it, I’m not playing the ‘wallow in Zemnian’ game. This is supposed to be a party, so I’m gonna go party.”

And then she’s squeezing his shoulder and gone all at the same time, and he blinks. And hovers by the wall.

And hovers by the wall.

He considers the kitchen. Too many people, and his desire for chips was not enough to sway him to make that venture through the social circle that had claimed the snack counter as theirs. He thinks he sees Molly, perched on the edge of the counter and making out with…someone.

He looks away before he can figure out why the bubble of ‘meh’ in his chest had burst at that.

And he continues to hover by the wall.

The music shifts track and a roaring woop goes up from the crowd and a blaring, off kilter trumpet and bass combo blasts through. Instantly there is a shift in bodies and movement congregating further into the living room and ‘dancing.’ The surge shifts too close to Caleb’s wall and he makes a break for the now empty kitchen.

He puts the island (he thinks it’s rose quartz and feels a pang of envy for the splendor in a simple countertop) between himself and any potential entrances of people and finally indulges in some chips.

“Caleb!”

He jumps, and Nott drops down? from…where did she….?

“Nott?”

She blinks up at him, now from the floor, green stained curls messy and frizzy on top of her head.

“Yeah?”

“ _Wo_ …where were you?” he asks, squinting as he tilts his head back to survey her options.

Chandelier light fixture. Not likely.

Cabinets. Maybe?

Refrigerator. …

Bal—

“Oh. Turns out you can get onto the chandelier from the balcony. It was pretty cool, look what I found!”

Of course it was the chandelier.

He drops his head back down with a soft sigh, and sees she’s holding a lightbulb in one hand and…an article of clothing?...a woman’s bra…in the other.

“ _Was?_ ”

She laughs, and twists the lightbulb so it catches the light. Instead of shining through, it refracts and sparkles off of it, and Caleb realizes before she says that it is:

“It’s a fucking _crystal_!”

“That is very cool, _liebling_ ,” he admits, though he can’t take his eyes off the underwear. “Nott, why do you…?”

“Oh. There’s a contest or something going on to see who can throw the most clothes on top of the chandelier.”

He blinks, and tilts his head back up and yep. There are indeed, several people whooping and tossing pieces of clothing onto the chandelier.

“Kids are weird,” Nott says with a laugh, and he runs his fingers fondly through her hair without looking.

“ _Du bist ein kind_ ,” he murmurs, and she grumbles and shakes off his hand.

“ _Ich bin…._ ” she snaps, and he chuckles lowly.

 _“Nicht,”_ he finishes for her, and she grins widely.

“Nott,” she tosses back, and before he can fully decipher her play on words, she’s gone into the crowd again.

He’s on the verge of feeling moderately better after she leaves.

Which is, of course, when Molly and the group of people he has unsurprisingly charmed come flooding back into the kitchen.

(Exit stage left, pursued by bear.)

He finds himself in a hallway, and the atmosphere here is almost somber. Peaceful. There are bookshelves pressed into the wall on one side, and pictures hung on the other.

There are exactly three pictures on the wall.

One is of a young man with darkened skin and hair shaved in a military style. Which makes sense, given he is also dressed in military uniform in the photo. The young man is not smiling, but there is something about his eyes that suggests he is one prone to smiling a lot. The other photo is of an almost but not quite adult, dark skin, but not as dark as his brother’s. And they _are_ brothers, there’s no mistaking that. There is the same jawline, same eyes. Same mouth.

However where the military brother was only ‘not smiling’ in his photo, this one is actively scowling. Messy hair a shade lighter and bleached at the tips, a slouching posture and a college hoodie. Caleb does not recognize the name, but the emblem. It’s one of the most prestigious universities in the country.

Again he feels that sharp pang of envy for the prestige. The wealth and the social circles and opportunities for both which he himself had ruined. It wells in him a moment too long, and so he’s entirely caught off guard when a voice says:

“If you’re looking for the bathroom, you’re in the wrong place and have the wrong excuse.”

For the second time in as many hours, he jumps, whirling to see a young man about his age. Tanned skin and stark white curls gelled neatly atop his head. Silver earrings in the shapes of stars and planets. Dark clothing, pants and a well fitted button down. After a moment, Caleb realizes the button down also bears a faint, stellar pattern. Then he realizes he’s staring at this person’s shoes- dark, beaten converse that are a direct contrast to both the outfit and the tip of the cane beside the other boy’s right shoe.

“Erm, sorry,” he mumbles. “Got sidetracked.”

He drags his eyes upwards, not too far. But enough that he can see the edges of the boy’s expression, the corner of his curling-down mouth and the faint narrowing of eyes.

“Not much of a party person, I take it?” The boy says, and just like that his tone is light.

“Ah, no. Not really,” Caleb admits shakily, risking a closer look at the boy’s face as he moves closer.

A shaft of light blocks the space between the two of them, but the other boy steps through it easily enough. It also, conveniently, stabs enough light across his eyes that Caleb can see they are a rich amber color, and he swallows hard as the boy suddenly is much closer.

“Essek,” he says, short and to the point.

“Er, my name is Caleb. Caleb Widogast.”

Essek shifts his weight pointedly, leaning heavy on the cane as his shoulders turn in the direction of the fray.

“Back to the chaos then, Caleb Widogast.”

Right.

He nods, steels himself.

For a moment he thinks he can see Essek do the same beside him; a sort of squaring of shoulders and a shake of a wrist before the hand grips the cane again like it’s a sword and not a tool for mobility.

And then they’re into the chaos, as it were. Or rather, Caleb is.

Essek vanishes the moment the party lights hit Caleb’s eyes.

(Caleb does not miss him. That would be absurd, to miss someone you hardly know.)

What Caleb _does_ miss is his wall.

It’s taken now, when he makes it back to the living room. By Beau, and Jester, who had backed Beau up against it, and by Beau’s wandering hands and Jester’s grinning, kissing mouth.

(He decides not to feel any particular way about that.) Happy for them. He should feel happy for them. He is happy for them.

That bubble in his chest comes back and he's aware that it's anxiety and jealousy and apathy all at once, and he beelines for the kitchen again because fuck it he wants a drink. Molly sees him coming. Molly, who promptly shoves aside reaching, faceless hands and grins that bright grin of his and takes one look at Caleb's face and laughs. 

"Oh, I know that face!" He says, accent lilting roughly. 

Caleb thinks it must be because of all the people he's kissed tonight, and again that hot pang and he very much would like-

A drink is in his hand. 

He looks at it, and looks back up in time to see Molly winking at him before the music changes again from the other room. Instantly, Molly's face brightens and sharpens at once, wicked delight in every facet of expression as he crows "Oh _fuck_ yeah! Jester!!!" 

And then he's writhing his way out and into the fraying dance floor. Caleb almost tells him that pursuing Jester would be a lost cause except he's drinking. It's sweet and bitter and burns on its way down and he lets it settle in his throat and lungs. Lets it fill up his head until the throbbing music doesn't seem quite so bad. Until he's just throbbing with it, curled against the island and safely away from the throbbing people and the throbbing....Essek. 

Essek? 

Caleb blinks, and sees that unbeknownst to him, Essek had sidled up against the island as well. Or rather, Essek was on the side of the island nearest the counter opposite Caleb, and he was not sidling so much as leaning, tilting like a dark star on an axis. His fingers are curled tight around the cane in his one hand, and the other shifts in a short, repetitive sliding motion. It clicks at the same moment Essek sees him watching that he'd been rubbing his leg, and the odd twitching of his jaw had been pain. 

"Caleb Widogast," Essek says, and just like that he is upright and composed, eyes bright and mouth smiling. "I didn't take you for the drinking type either. I guess I should know better than to assume by now but you have your surprises it seems."

"I only drink when I'm bored," Caleb replies. 

Well, or particularly self-destructive. But Essek doesn't need to know about that. 

"Really?" Essek says, and there is something that Caleb thinks is supposed to be amusement on his face, except his jaw is twitching again. "That's a shame. What sort of things interest you then, if not wildly splendid parties?" 

"Don't you want to sit down?" Caleb blurts instead, and Essek raises a brow at him. "It's just your uh....you seem to be in pain." 

Something flashes, dark and fierce across Essek's face. Then it's gone and he's grinning, but Caleb doesn't know what he's said that's funny. 

"You've got quite the depth of perception for someone who's supposed to be drunk. And bored."

He looks down at his cup and realizes that he had in fact, drank more than he'd intended. Beau would tease him for that. Except Beau is in the other room, potentially still against Caleb's wall, still under Jester's hands and mouth, and the thought of it stabs hot through him again. 

"I am not very good at this," he admits to the rum in his hand. 

"I can tell," Essek says, and when Caleb looks back up it's to Essek pouring him another drink. "It's ok...I'm not very good at it either." 

Somehow Caleb does get his wall back. He sips his drink this time, and it is strange because for all his talk of boredom, he is finding himself rather engaged. Namely in Essek, who listens to his staccato complaints with silent amusement. He still grips his cane too tight but his jaw had stopped twitching at least, so Caleb considers it a good sign. Had been considering, quite out of nowhere, some other insane things, and had promptly shoved them aside. 

"I suppose I'm glad to be able to provide some entertainment for you," Essek shout-says. "Although I am curious as to how exactly you got in if this is so far from your usual scene. Did you come alone?" 

It's as Caleb is thinking _oh, Jester would have gotten a kick out of that one_ that Beau suddenly breaks from the crowd. 

"There you are!" She gasps out, flushed and sweaty, her hair pulled loose from it's tight bun. "We're just about to head out, you ready?"

Then she spots Essek and her grin widens. "Hey, Essek!" She shouts, at a much more obnoxious tone. 

Essek cringes beside him, but plasters on a careful smile back. His jaw is twitching again. 

"Hey man, thanks for the invite! It was really cool hanging out and everything."

"How could I not invite you?" Essek says back tightly. "With the way Jester kept hounding me with messages, I didn't really have a choice."

"Ha ha, yeah. She'll do that to you," Beau chuckles. "Wait...Caleb you drank?! Nooo, you were supposed to drive us!" 

"Caduceus can drive us," Caleb mumbles, sudden mortification that has nothing to do with his driving status flooding the apathetic spaces of his mind. 

"Yeah but Cad drives like a grandma and you _know_ he's not gonna let anyone else drive his car!" 

Beau continues to whine, and Caleb continues to slowly die inside. 

"Get Fjord to ask him to drive the car," Caleb replies on autopilot, and a sudden low chuckle stakes him to the ground. 

"Well, I will let you figure out your driving situation," Essek smirks, and Caleb wants the ground to swallow him. 

(He also has the visceral and absurd thought that he wants to see that smirk in other contexts.) 

"Until the next party, Caleb Widowgast. I'll try to make sure it's not as boring as this one." 

Beau drags him away before he can come up with a response, which is good, because he's sure that anything out of his mouth at that point would have been far from coherent. And he isn't sure how, but Caleb thinks that perhaps he is...not entirely opposed to the whole 'party' thing after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was is das? - What is that? 
> 
> Ja, ich bin gut.- Yeah/Yes, I am good. 
> 
> Was?- What? 
> 
> Wo?- Where? 
> 
> Liebling- (endearment) Love, darling, favorite
> 
> Du bist ein kind- You are a kid
> 
> Ich bin nicht- I am not


End file.
